The history of the Liberal Ministry which succeeded that of Beaconsfield is not a splendid record. The Cabinet and the party were in fact in process of disintegration, and even without the Irish controversy, some new grouping of the parties would soon have taken place. All sections of the Liberals were united in their dislike of the Imperialist foreign policy of their predecessors. But the younger men, headed by Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Charles Dilke, were aggressively Radical, deeply tinged with new theories about land, capital and labour, and the unfair distribution of wealth. Older men, like the Duke of Argyll, held by the individualist ideas of a previous generation, and Goschen refused to join the Government at all because he objected to proposed extensions of the franchise. The internal differences of such a composite Ministry inevitably weakened it in the face of the enemy. The external difficulties were also unusually great. A trade depression in 1878 and 1879 caused great distress among the working classes. Ireland was again seething with discontent, the Land League had begun a campaign against the payment of rent, and agrarian and political crime soon attained to such proportions that it seemed as if Society would be dissolved. In Parliament, the Irish Nationalists { 280} made the obstruction of business a fine art, and the Fourth Party,[327] shouldering Sir Stafford Northcote out of the leadership, conducted the Conservative Opposition with equal vigour and success. These different obstacles reduced the real power of the Government below its apparent strength. But it contrived, nevertheless, to apply Liberal principles with considerable success, both at home and abroad.
The progress of reform was along the lines which had been marked out by the last Liberal Government. Education was made compulsory in 1881, almost without opposition. The household franchise, conferred upon dwellers in towns by the Act of 1867, was extended to rural districts by an Act of 1884, and so far as men were concerned, the right of the individual to control his own government was thus secured, nearly a hundred years after the French Revolution began. Almost more significant than this legislation as a mark of the appreciation of the voter was the construction of the modern party machine on the model of Mr. Chamberlain's system in Birmingham. Electors are now grouped in wards and divisions, each section having its elected committee, and all linked up together in a central caucus. Communication between voters and representatives has thus become more direct than ever before, and the Member of Parliament is now completely subject to the authority of those whom he is supposed to govern. Both parties, and the women auxiliaries who, about this time, were organized in connection with them, adopted this organization of public opinion between 1880 and 1890, and the effect on political life has been very great. The common man is brought into direct touch with the machinery of the State, his information is more precise, and the expression of his wishes more effective. The party system as it exists to-day has in fact completely reversed the eighteenth-century theory of government. In 1812 the Legislature, within very wide limits, enforced the wishes of its members upon the people. In 1912 the people, within very { 281} wide limits, enforced its wishes upon the members of the Legislature. Ministers have ceased to be the leaders of the Houses in which they sit, and have become leaders of the people. Their appeal is direct to the constituencies, and it is among the rank and file of their party in the country that they find their strength. The new system is not without its dangers. If it is a more efficient check upon abuse of the common people than the old, it offers less freedom to the independent member, and where we once contrived party as a means of controlling our government, we are now rather inclined to cast about for some contrivance which will control our party. The extent to which the Cabinet, relying upon its hold over the party machine, is enabled to dictate its wishes to the members who depend upon that machine for their own success, is the greatest danger to real political freedom which at present exists. The Cabinet is now almost as much a legislative as an executive body. But whatever the difficulties and the risks involved, the construction of this political machinery in 1880 was a distinct mark in the progress of Liberalism.