REFORM AND DEMOCRACY 67 



and 1829, made Catholic Ireland self-conscious 

 and strong enough to paralyze entirely the 

 authority of the legal government. He did 

 this without bloodshed and without giving a 

 chance to his adversaries to use against him 

 with any success the processes of the ordinary 

 law or to find ground for resort to exceptional 

 measures. His method was agitation, of a 

 species so astutely controlled and regulated as 

 to make the maximum impression with the 

 minimum opportunity for lawlessness. The 

 feature of his triumph that caused the deepest 

 alarm in the ruling class was the severance of 

 the Irish tenantry from almost slavish depend 

 ence on their landlords. The creation thus of 

 an independent spirit in the mass of the Irish 

 population was destined to produce most revo 

 lutionary results in the long run on the relations 

 between England and Ireland; its immediate 

 influence on the political movements in Great 

 Britain was of the utmost concern to the class 

 that was opposing the onward sweep of reform. 

 The removal of disabilities from the Catholics 

 was effected while the Tory cabinet of Welling 

 ton and Peel was still in power. A year later, 

 in 1830, the Whigs, led by Earl Grey and 

 Brougham, came into control for the first time 



