ABSTRACT
Lord Liverpool's long administration has traditionally been divided into two unequal periods: a long 'reactionary' phase, 1812-22, symbolized by Sidmouth and the Six Acts, and a shorter 'liberal' phase, 1822-27, associated with the economic policies and other reforms of Liverpool's 'second-wave' ministers, in particular William Huskisson, Frederick Robinson and Robert Peel. The ministerial reshuffie necessitated by Casdereagh's suicide in 1822 thus becomes the natural fulcrum. In fact, the division is misleading (68, 43-9). Not only were the second-wave ministers serving lengthy and generally dutiful apprenticeships before 1822 but many of the reforms traditionally associated with them had been presaged by their supposedly reactionary predecessors. If turning-points are sought, 1819 is a better candidate than 1822, but Liverpool's government never experienced anything so cathartic as an ideological conversion. The Prime Minister had always favoured free trade and stated his belief as early as 1812 that 'the less commerce and manufactures were meddled with the more they were likely to prosper". His close relationship with Huskisson, whose influence before 1823 was belied by his minor office, suggests both Liverpool's long-term commitment to the reduction of tariff barriers and his recognition of the need to reconcile the potentially divergent interests of land and commerce for the good of the nation and to the discomfiture of radical political reformers. Huskisson had the respect of businessmen, and his understanding of the complexities of the new political economy (Ch. 5) was more secure than that of nearly all his colleagues. The reverse of the coin is more simply stated. Liverpool and his ministers were no more in favour of a reform of
the franchise in 1827 than they had been in 1819. It should not be assumed that because these years saw important initiatives in the direction of the liberalization of trade they saw an analagous growth in trust of the masses.
