The new governing class had that dislike of forms and liking of individual liberty to which reference has been made. The Parliamentary Whigs, no less than the manufacturers, were imbued with the same spirit. The natural bias of their party had always been in that direction. They had abolished slavery, had emancipated Dissenters and Catholics, had defended free speech during the reaction, and had finally substituted the control of the middle class of the common people for that of the aristocracy and the landed interest. In recent years they had been infected with the temper, even while they despised the philosophizing, of the Benthamites. In one respect they lagged behind the Philosophic Radicals. They were landed proprietors, and their adoption of Free Trade was slow and reluctant. It was as unnatural for them to lower the price of their tenants' corn as it {170} was for the manufacturers to reduce the hours of their men's labour. But their general tendency to restrict the action of Government was as marked as that of the avowed Utilitarians. They constantly, as in the reference to "happiness" already quoted, used the very language of the creed. The following words of Macaulay might have been spoken by Grote or Roebuck. "The business of Government is not directly to make the people rich, but to protect them in making themselves rich.... We can give them only freedom to employ their industry to the best advantage, and security in the enjoyment of what their industry has acquired. These advantages it is our duty to give at the smallest possible cost. The diligence and forethought of individuals will thus have fair play; and it is only by the diligence and forethought of individuals that the community can become prosperous." The Reform Bill would thus indirectly conduce to the national prosperity. "It will secure to us a House of Commons which, by preserving peace, by destroying monopolies, by taking away unnecessary public burdens, by judiciously distributing necessary public burdens, will, in the progress of time, greatly improve our condition."[209] "Reform," said Sydney Smith, "will produce economy and investigation; there will be fewer jobs and a less lavish expenditure; wars will not be persevered in for years after the people are tired of them; taxes will be taken off the poor and laid upon the rich;... cruel and oppressive punishments (such as those for night poaching) will be abolished. If you steal a pheasant you will be punished as you ought to be, but not sent away from your wife and children for seven years. Tobacco will be 2d. per lb. cheaper. Candles will fall in price ... if peace, economy, and justice are the results of Reform, a number of small benefits ... will accrue to millions of the people; and the connection between the existence of Lord John Russell and the reduced price of bread and cheese will be as clear as it has been the object of his honest, wise, and useful life to make it."[210] {171}