Letter--The invasion scare--Lord John's remark
about Palmerston--Fall of the Russell Administration.

ENGLAND in 1848 was not destined to escape an outbreak of the
revolutionary spirit, though the Chartist movement, in spite of the
panic which it awakened, was never really formidable. The overthrow and
flight of Louis Philippe, the proclamation in March of the French
Republic on the basis of universal suffrage and national workshops, and
the revolutionary movements and insurrections in Austria and Italy,
filled the artisans and operatives of this country with wild dreams, and
led them to rally their scattered and hitherto dispirited forces. Within
six years of the passing of the Reform Bill, in fact, in the autumn
after the Queen's accession, the working classes had come to the
conclusion that their interests had been largely overlooked, and that
the expectations they had cherished in the struggle of 1831-32 had been
falsified by the apathy and even the reaction which followed the
victory. Not in one, but in all the great civil and religious struggles
of the century, they had borne the brunt of the battle; and yet they
had been thrust aside when it came to the dividing of the spoil.

The middle classes were in a different position: their aspirations were
satisfied, and they were quite prepared, for the moment at least, to
rest and be thankful. The sleek complacency of the shopkeeper, moreover,
and his hostility to further agitation, threw into somewhat dramatic
relief the restless and sullen attitude of less fortunate conscripts of
toil. Food was dear, wages were low, work was slack, and in the great
centres of industry the mills were running half-time, and so keen was
the struggle for existence that the operatives were at the mercy of
their taskmasters, and too often found it cruel. Small wonder if social
discontent was widespread, especially when it is remembered that the
people were not only hopeless and ill-fed, but housed under conditions
which set at defiance even the most elementary laws of health. More than
to any other man in the ranks of higher statesmanship the people looked
to Lord Durham, the idol of the pitmen of the North, for the redress of
their wrongs, and no statesman of that period possessed more courage or
more real acquaintance with the actual needs of the people. Lord Durham,
though a man of splendid ability, swift vision, and generous sympathy,
had, unhappily, the knack of making enemies,