hese considerations do not justify him in opposing
the reformers root and branch. The greatest statesman is he who
distinguishes between the real grievances of a suffering people and the
visionary or dangerous schemes which they beget in ill-balanced brains.
To oppose moderate reformers as well as extremists is both unjust and
unwise. It confounds together the would-be healers and the enemies of
the existing order. Furthermore, an indiscriminate attack tends to close
the ranks in a solid phalanx, and it should be the aim of a tactician
first to seek to loosen those ranks.

Finally, we cannot forget that Pitt had had it in his power to redress
the most obvious of the grievances which kept large masses of his
countrymen outside the pale of political rights and civic privilege.
Those grievances were made known to him temperately in the years 1787,
1789, and 1790; but he refused to amend them, and gradually drifted to
the side of the alarmists and reactionaries. Who is the wiser guide at
such a time? He who sets to work betimes to cure certain ills which are
producing irritation in the body politic? Or he who looks on the
irritation as a sign that nothing should be done? The lessons of history
and the experience of everyday life plead for timely cure and warn
against a nervous postponement. Doubtless Pitt would have found it
difficult to persuade some of his followers to apply the knife in the
session of 1791 or 1792. But in the Parliament elected in 1790 his
position was better assured, his temper more imperious, than in that of
1785, which needed much tactful management. The fact, then, must be
faced that he declined to run the risk of the curative operation, even
at a time when there were no serious symptoms in the patient and little
or no risk for the surgeon.

The reason which he assigned for his refusal claims careful notice. It
was that his earlier proposals (those of 1782-5) had aimed at national
security; while those of the present would tend to insecurity. Possibly
in the month of April 1792 this argument had some validity; though up to
that time all the violence had been on the Tory side. But the plea does
not excuse Pitt for not taking action in the year 1790. That was the
period when the earlier apathy of the nation to Reform was giving way to
interest, and interest had not yet grown into excitement. Still less had
loyalty waned under the repressive measures whereby he now proposed to
give it vigour.

Thus,