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He saw the value of the party-system, and he admitted the necessity of some degree of popular representation. But he was entirely satisfied with current Whig principles, could they but be purged of their grosser deformities. He knew too well how little reason is wont to enter into the formation of political opinion to make the sacrifice of innovation to its power.
He realized that the party-system he never used the actual term while it provides room for men's ambitions at the same time prevents the equation of ambition with indispensability. "Woe to him," says De Lolme, "... who should endeavor to make the people believe that their fate depends on the persevering virtue of a single citizen." He sees the paramount value of freedom of the press.
He illustrates at its best the value of that party-system the worth of which made so deep an impression on all he wrote. He showed that government by discussion can be made to illuminate great principles. He showed also that allegiance to party is never inconsistent with the deeper allegiance to the demand of conscience.
It is the age which saw the crystallization of the party-system, and therein it may perhaps lay claim to have recognized what Bagehot called the vital principle of representative government. Few discussions of the sphere of government have been so productive as that in which Adam Smith gave a new basis to economic science.
It was the necessities of foreign policy which drove him to admit the immense possibilities of the party-system as also to accept his own best safeguard in the foundation of the Bank of England. The Cabinet, towards the close of his reign, had already become the fundamental administrative instrument.
Inheriting the possibilities of the cabinet system he gave it its modern expression by creating the office of Prime Minister. The party-system was already inevitable; and with his advent to full power in 1727 we have the characteristic outlines of English representative government. Thenceforward, there are, on the whole, but three large questions with which the age concerned itself.
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