NINETEENTH-CENTURY LIBERALISM comprises an amorphous blend of
ideas, which may be loosely grouped under the general heading of revolt
against authority in the political, religious, and economic spheres.
Liberals attacked restraints they found irksome, and in so doing from
time to time shifted their ground in response to changing situations.
Within the broad confines of liberalism there were many mansions, and
a generous latitude for differences of opinion.

Goldwin Smith liked to call himself a Manchester liberal. Many of
his most deeply held convictions were typical Manchester doctrine: his
hatred of military expeditions and "foreign entanglements," his enthusi-
asm for the republican institutions of the United States, his dislike of
aristocracy and plutocracy and in general of a privileged governing class,
his hopes and fears concerning extension of the franchise, his distrust
of parties as apt to reduce politics to a trade, and his fearless concern
for what he believed to be the dictates of public morality. Bright and
Cobden were his close friends, but on many points he differed from them.
To social and labour legislation he was far more sympathetic. On eco-
nomic questions he was a qualified, not doctrinaire, free-trader. He
shared Bright's desire to widen the franchise, but considered Disraeli's
Second Reform Act too radical, and Gladstone's Third Reform Bill
frankly demagogic. He advocated colonial emancipation and deplored
pride in empire, but his imperial creed was more positive than that of
most Manchester men. He was profoundly interested in the development
of colonies as independent nations and seed-beds for transplanted
British traditions. Thus while he sympathized with the Manchester faith
in internationalism, he cared more than most of its exponents about the
future of new nationalities. On education his views were close to those
of John Bright and John Stuart Mill: he believed in popular education,
but considered its provision a private rather than a public responsibility.
He was, in short, a strong individualist. Among the tenets of Victorian
liberalism he adopted some, rejected others, and added new elements of
his own.

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