The French revolution split the English whigs over profound issues of principle. One section, of which Fox was the most prominent member, viewed the revolution, at least in its earlier stages, with considerable sympathy and argued that the war with France could have been avoided. The other section accepted Burke’s interpretation of the revolution and at the beginning of 1793 supported the government’s intervention in the European war. And from the middle of 1792 the possibility of a coalition between this latter section and Pitt was in the air. One factor which delayed the formation of a coalition government was the attitude of the duke of Portland, ‘the natural leader’ of the whig party. Portland, who combined pride of birth with a sense of duty, some political shrewdness and strong opinions which he expressed, when writing, with considerable fluency, seems to have inspired genuine respect and even affection amongst those who worked with him. But he was hesitant, and in the early nineties, while accepting Burke’s views on the revolution, he did not wait to split his party. The existence of the whig party, ‘a union of persons of independent minds and fortunes formed and connected together by their belief in the principles by which the revolution of 1688 was founded’, was essential, he believed, to the welfare of the country. The whig party ‘which alone is entitled to be distinguished by the name of party’, he asserted, ‘must be as eternal as I conceive the constitution of this country to be’.

Throughout the nineteenth century, books, pamphlets and periodicals offered widely-ranging advice to the working class. One theme, appearing about 1820, was political economy: ‘Next to religion’, a royal commission reported, ‘the knowledge most important to a labouring man is that of the causes which regulate the amount of his wages, the hours of his work, the regularity of his employment, and the prices of what he consumes’. And Richard Whately, former Drummond Professor of political economy at Oxford, now archbishop of Dublin, urged similarly the need to teach political economy to the poor : ‘The lower orders’, he said, ‘would not … be, as now, liable to the misleading of every designing demagogue … If they were well grounded in the outlines of the science, it would go further towards rendering them provident, than any other scheme that could be devised.’

The years 1906 to 1910 which form the chronological limits of this study bear witness to a decline in the importance of the Irish question in English politics. The nature of the legislative proposals of the liberal government during the earlier part of this period and the consequent vigorous reaction of the unionist opposition, culminating in the rejection of the budget of 1909 by the house of lords, ensured the temporary eclipse of home rule. The constitutional crisis arising out of the deadlock between the two houses of parliament continued throughout 1910 and 1911, and it is only in 1912, with the introduction of the third home rule bill, that Ireland once more assumes a pre-eminent place in English politics. The really decisive year, however, for the interpreter of the Irish policy of the unionist party is 1910.