Which only means that now, as always, Whigs and Radicals were
at odds; and the "unauthorized programme" of the day was sending its
fiery cross through the towns and the industrial districts of the north.
A debate of some importance was going on in the House of Commons. The
Tory Government had brought in a Land Bill, intended, no doubt, rather
as bait for electors than practical politics. It was timid and
ill-drafted, and the Opposition, in days when there were still some
chances in debate, joyously meant to kill it, either by frontal attack
or by obstruction. But, in the opinion of the Left Wing of the party,
the chief weapon of its killing should be the promise of a much larger
and more revolutionary measure from the Liberal side. The powerful Right
Wing, however, largely represented on the front bench, held that you
could no more make farmers than saints by Act of Parliament, and that
only by slow and indirect methods could the people be drawn back to the
land. There was, in fact, little difference between them and the front
bench opposite, except a difference in method; only the Whig brains were
the keener; and in John Ferrier the Right Wing had a personality and an
oratorical gift which the whole Tory party admired and envied.
Pages:
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414