The Land from the Citizens Standpoint. 387 



the accession of George III., a Coalition Ministry was in 

 power ; a little later there was the unheard-of phenomenon 

 of a Tory Adminstration. But this was a period when 

 politicians were influenced more by the principles of popular 

 leaders than by the tenets of parties. We read of Newcastle, 

 the Whig, continuing the discreditable practices which had 

 brought Whiggism into disrepute, and of the elder Pitt, who 

 refused to be called a Whig, upholding the original principles 

 of that party by personally discountenancing bribery and 

 place-seeking. 



Such an unnatural condition of politics could not, however, 

 continue long. The Tories, after the accession of George III., 

 had begun to abate much of their original animosity for the 

 House of Brunswick. The Whigs, no longer obliged to 

 emphasize the rights of the reigning sovereign, found time 

 to advocate those of the people, which, after all, were the key- 

 note of their political belief. A section of the party began 

 to evince impatience at the slow progress of democratic 

 reform. Amidst, however, the excitements of constant war, 

 but little room was found for domestic reform, and both the 

 Land question and the Agricultural question were in a state of 

 suspended animation. The consequence was, that Liberals 

 and Whigs were often members of the same Cabinet, and 

 Radical measures, if discussed at all, were not the special 

 province of either landowner or trader. The Duke of Rich- 

 mond, as well as Alderman Sawbridge, advocated annual 

 Parliaments and universal suffrage ; and the Westminster 

 Committee of Correspondence, which may be regarded as the 

 Radical organization in embryo, was largely composed of 

 landowners in both Houses. Thus in such a heterogeneous 

 assembly, the special interests of neither party were fitting 

 subjects for discussion ; and its members contented themselves 

 for the present in stumping the Provinces as advocates of the 

 reduction of expenditure, the abolition of sinecure offices and 

 exorbitant pensions, and the reform of constitutional abuses. 



Then changes began to take place in the views both of 

 individuals and of parties. Charles James Fox left the Tories 

 to become a Radical, and the younger Pitt drew closer to the 



