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The Rise of Democracy.
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The Rise of Democracy
The Rise
of
Democracy
By
J. HOLLAND ROSE, M.A.
Late Scholar of Christ's College, Cambridge; author of
"The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era"
LONDON
BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED, 50 OLD BAILEY, E.G.
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sso
General Preface.
As the present volume is introductory to the Victorian Era
Series, it is proper to explain the purport of the series as a
whole. It aims at describing in attractive and scholarly form
the chief movements of our age and the lifework of its influential
men. Each volume will deal with a well-defined subject, which
it will exhibit in its historical setting and in its relation to
present conditions. Collaboration, recognized as being an
essential of modern historical work, has been adopted in this
series, in that each volume will be the work of a writer who has
made its subject a special study. This will, it is hoped, ensure
the coherence of the individual volumes, and the unity and
balance of the series as a whole.
In this volume I have endeavoured to describe, as fully as
limits of space permit, the course of the political movement
which has profoundly modified the whole of our public life.
One remark as to the usage of terms seems to be called for here
Throughout my inquiry I have used the term democracy in its
strict sense, as government by the people, and not in the slipshod
way in which it is now too often employed to denote the wage-
earning classes. That this misuse of the term is responsible for
much slipshod thought on political matters, will, I trust, be made
clear in the latter part of this little work.
The Radical movement attained strength and persistence in
the first years of Queen Victoria's reign; and its peaceful char-
acter has been due in no small degree to the loyalty awakened
by the Queen's personal character and life. But in order to
understand the aims of the Radicals who drew up the Charter,
it is necessary to review the trend of events during the preceding
generation, and to connect the political history of the present
reign with the social and economic problems which became an
urgent part of practical politics on the conclusion of the great
war. After tracing the origin and general course of the Chartist
movement, I have endeavoured to show its connection with the
latter-day Radicalism, which led up to the Reform Acts of 1867
1368021
vi General Preface.
and 1884-85; and in the two closing chapters I have ven-
tured on a brief examination of two of the burning questions
of the day. In regard to these topics Labour Legislation
and Foreign Policy I have striven calmly to look facts in the
face, and to inquire by the light of the teachings of the past, what
is the significance of the present situation. In one respect, the
present time seems opportune for some such inquiry as is hazarded
in this little work. The lull in the strife of political parties
affords a good opportunity for a quiet consideration of our
actual position and a deliberate survey of the course of the
struggle. That there has been a striking change in the relations
of parties and the conduct of the fight will be evident to all
who contrast the political speeches of to-day with the excited
harangues of 1880-5; while those again will seem tame beside
the fervid declamations of the " forties ".
In my treatment of the more strictly historical parts of the
subject, I have purposely given only the briefest reference to
many politicians who figure largely in Parliamentary annals or
in the gossip of Pall Mall. My desire has been rather to dwell
on the efforts of humbler individuals, who stirred up the artisans
of England to action which finally compelled responsible states-
men to listen to their demands. I have accordingly bestowed
more attention on William Cobbett than on Viscount Melbourne,
on Henry Vincent than on Lord John Russell. In some direc-
tions this little work essays to open up new ground, and where
I have described well-known events I have endeavoured to
invest them with a new significance by approaching them from
the point of view of the workman's club rather than of the lobby
of St. Stephen's. In relation to Free-trade, Irish affairs, educa-
tional efforts, and the work of several influential thinkers and
statesmen, my narrative may seem incomplete ; but these topics
will be handled in other volumes of the series.
My indebtedness to other workers in this field is, I believe,
everywhere acknowledged in foot-notes. For valuable advice
on several topics I must express my grateful acknowledgments
to Mr. G. Laurence Gomme, and to Messrs. C. V. Coates and
G. W. Johnson, both of Trinity College, Cambridge.
J. H. ROSE.
BALHAM, S.W., October^' *897-
Contents.
CHAPTER I
Page
The Origin of English Radicalism 9
CHAPTER II
Radicals and the Reform Bill of 1832 - - - - 3 2
CHAPTER III
The Revolt against the New Poor Laws - 52
CHAPTER IV
The Fight for a Free Press 62
CHAPTER V
Crown, Parliament, and People (1837) - - 77
CHAPTER VI
The Rise of 'Chartism (1838-1839) - 84
CHAPTER VII
The Physical-Force Chartists - - - 97
CHAPTER VIII
The Complete-Suffrage Movement - 114
CHAPTER IX
Revolution or Evolution f I2 $
viii Contents.
CHAPTER X
Pag*
Phases of Political Thought ..... jfj
^^_____ CHAPTER XI
^The Reform Bills of 1866-1867^ " - - - 167
CHAPTER XII
The Ebb and Flow of Public Opinion - - - - 186
^ CHAPTER XIII
\The Third Reform Act 200
CHAPTER XIV
Democracy and Labour - 214.
CHAPTER XV
Democracy and Foreign Policy ----- 235
INDEX 249
The Rise of Democracy.
Chapter I.
The Origin of English Radicalism.
Any inquiry into the course of democratic progress in
England would be confessedly flimsy and superficial
which did not endeavour, however briefly, to indicate
the nature of the movement in its earlier stages. Is
English democracy of home growth, or does it owe its
chief impulse to the cognate movement in France? Was
it propelled onwards by a conscious striving after new
ideals, or was it merely the result of discontent aroused
by material discomforts and unjust laws? Did our
Radical reformers claim that they were initiating a new
era for humanity at large, or were they content with
redressing the ills of the time? To these and similar
questions it is hoped that this little work will furnish
some reply, not, as a rule, explicitly and in set terms,
but rather by means of an unbiassed narrative which
will leave the reader free to draw his own conclusions
as to the drift of events, the full significance of which
cannot as yet be fully realized.
A few words may not be out of place here to suggest
one important difference which separates the democracy
of the last hundred years from that of the ancient world.
Popular government, as we now know it, aims at con-
ceding full political rights and duties to all adult males
who are not obviously disqualified properly to discharge
io The Rise of Democracy.
them. We should now deny the name of democrat to
any who would withhold these rights from a majority
of the adult men of the state. In the ancient worla, on
the other hand, popular government never contemplated,
even as a possible contingency, that civic responsibility
should ever be accorded to the slaves, on whom fell
nearly all the burdens of menial employments. Govern-
ment was therefore in the hands of a minority, sometimes
of a small minority. Oftener still it was the tool of a
faction; but there is no instance of a defeated faction
deliberately enfranchising the hewers of wood and
drawers of water in order to compass the overthrow of
its successful rivals. Such a proposal would have been
wholly unintelligible to the democrats of ancient Greece
and Rome. 1
The political and social problems which modern de-
mocracy has endeavoured to solve are therefore im-
measurably wider and grander than any which came
within the ken of the philosophers and statesmen of the
ancient world. To what influence are we to attribute
the broadening and humanizing tendencies of modern
politics? Primarily to the love of individual liberty
cherished by the Teutonic tribes who laid the founda-
tions of a new social order throughout Western Europe.
Their sense of the dignity of man as man, when
strengthened by Christian teaching, opened up a new
future, which was to receive its fullest and most un-
fettered development in England. It was here that re-
presentative government found its first complete expres-
sion in a national Parliament as the guardian of popular
liberties a fact which decisively answers the question
as to the native origin of our democracy in its early or
mediaeval phase. But the question as to the origin of
the great impulse towards popular government charac-
1 Cf. Aristotle's Nic. Ethics, bk. x. chap. 6: "No one allows a slave to
share in happiness any more than in the life of a citizen ".
The Origin of English Radicalism. n
teristic of the last century scarcely admits of so clear an
answer; for under the warping" influence of time, intrigue,
and war, the essentially democratic features of our earlier
parliamentary system were gradually effaced, until there
seemed to be some danger that the masterful influence
of George III., and the bribes skilfully administered by
the "King's Friends", would degrade the constitution of
the United Kingdom to the level of that of the Electorate
of Hanover.
It was at this crisis of our history, when our affairs
seemed about "to be hurried into the rage of civil
violence or to sink into the dead repose of despotism ",
that a great thinker, renowned not less for his conser-
vatism than his candour, reawakened the flame of
patriotic enthusiasm for our ancient constitutional
liberties. In his Thoughts upon the Present Discontents
(1770) Burke complained that the House of Commons
was beginning to exercise control upon the people,
whereas " it was designed as a control for the people".
Lifting up his voice in protest against the insidious
influence of the secret Cabal, which intrigued in the
supposed interests of the king, he called on the people
to defeat its aims by compelling public men to pay
attention first and foremost to public opinion, so that
the House of Commons might again become, what it
ought to be, "the express image of the feelings of the
nation ". To this end the whole body of the people
must be called in to watch the proceedings of Parlia-
ment, must distribute lists of the votes given by mem-
bers, and by the pressure of public opinion must seek to
diminish the subservience of the House of Commons to
the crown. Not that Burke was republican: far from
it. His aim all through his political career was to re-
store and then to maintain that balance of powers be-
tween crown, Lords, and Commons which he regarded
as the essential feature of the English constitution.
12 The Rise of Democracy.
An interesting result of his protest, and of the excite-
ment arising out of the prosecutions of Wilkes, was soon
to be seen. In 1780 a band of energetic reformers,
among whom Major Cartwright and Home Tooke were
the most prominent, founded the Society for Constitu-
tional Information, which published several pamphlets
to prove the urgent need of parliamentary reform. At a
meeting of the society presided over by the great Whig
orator, Charles James Fox, a programme, which was
destined to be revived fifty-eight years later by the Char-
tists, was adopted as summarizing the aims of zealous
Whig reformers. It comprised the following as its most
prominent demands annual parliaments, universal suf-
frage, equal voting districts, abolition of the property
qualification for members of Parliament, payment of
members, and vote by ballot at parliamentary elec-
tions. Only by the attainment of these reforms, so the
society affirmed, could the House of Commons regain
its old position as the guardian of the people's liberties
against all encroachments by the other estates of the
realm.
But, apart from their historical significance, these
proceedings of the first important reform club were with-
out any immediate result. Parliament and people alike
yawned at the mere mention of reform; and after seem-
ingly fruitless efforts at educating public opinion, the
society decently expired. Its work, however, was not to
perish. The exposure of the abuses of court patronage,
and of the sordid obsequiousness of a Parliament of
borough-mongers, was soon to arouse a storm of indig-
nation when the lightning flashes of the French Revolu-
tion of 1789 lit up the darkness of the night. At once
the old apathy to matters political disappeared as if by
magic. Scores of clubs were founded on the model of the
famous Jacobin Club of Paris, and several of them es-
sayed to imitate the trenchant vigour of the attacks of
The Origin of English Radicalism. 13
Robespierre's disciples on old institutions. Certainly the
Gothic irregularities of the English political edifice fa-
voured the attacks of the "radical reformers" a name
now first used in the heated controversies of the time to
denote those who would tolerate no mere patchwork,
but demanded a reconstruction of the old edifice on an
essentially popular basis. The Birmingham Club dis-
tinguished itself by a vigorous attack on the abuses and
absurdities of our electoral system, declaring in its
manifesto that the constitution was a venerable fraud,
and that seats for the House of Commons were sold as
openly as stalls for cattle at a fair. The same facts,
when set forth in more academic language by reformers
in 1780, had evoked no general response. Yet, in 1792,
English public opinion seemed about to become scarcely
less Jacobinical than that of France. In both lands the
extreme reformers were in a small minority; but the
decision of their views and the weakness of the systems
which they attacked seemed to promise a speedy triumph
to democracy of the most advanced type. But the im-
pulse which came from France, though potent, was
transient. The diversion of her democratic ardour into
the alluring vistas of military glory, opened up by Bona-
parte, soon alienated her warmest admirers on these
shores ; and the wave of French political influence ebbed
almost as rapidly as it had flowed over our land. In
Parliament its effect had been even directly unfavourable
to the cause which Home Tooke and Cartwright had
championed. Many friends of the movement, alarmed
and disgusted by the levelling doctrines which had per-
meated the political clubs, withdrew their support from
motions for reform, which seemed tainted with Jaco-
binism. Burke, formerly the champion of electoral
reform, now included this in his list of the deadly sins
of democracy. Pitt asserted that the time was inoppor-
tune for considering resolutions similar to those which
14 The Rise of Democracy.
he had repeatedly urged in the previous decade; and
the end of the century saw the prospects of democracy
gloomier even than amidst the torpor of 1780. Then
there was the apathy of ignorance and sheer Saxon
stolidity : now there was a keen sense of disgust at the
facile perversion of French democracy by the baubles of
power skilfully dangled by Napoleon. The new creed
that promised to renovate the world had apparently led
only to the triumph of militarism and the spoliation of
neighbouring peoples by a nation which bowed its own
neck to the yoke in order the more completely to sub-
jugate others.
" I find nothing great :
Nothing is left which I can venerate;
So that almost a doubt within me springs
Of Providence, such emptiness at length
Seems at the heart of all things."
These were the feelings of Wordsworth, when now in
1803 he regarded the heart-breaking finale of all the wild
hopes and aspirations aroused by the French Revolution
of 1789, of which he had sung
" Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive ;
But to be young was very heaven".
Nor was it only the sensitive temperament of the poet
which acutely felt the disillusionment. The same tone
of pessimism pervades the writings of many of the
publicists of the day, who had welcomed the fall of the
Bastille as the beginning of a new era for the whole
human race. A new generation had to arise, oppressed
by other evils than those of war, distracted by new
social and industrial problems, before the ardour for
reform could revive; and when again it gathered strength,
its inspiration was drawn from native sources.
But, apart from the sudden chill which the personality
and career of Napoleon cast over English reformers,
The Origin of English Radicalism. 15
there were other influences of a more directly practical
nature which led the younger leaders to adopt methods
consonant with the traditions of the land of Hampden.
Indeed, most of the men who had been imbued with
French Jacobinism passed away in the period 1793-1815,
or lived in exile, leaving" the venerable Major Cartwright
as almost the sole connecting link between the earlier
generation of reformers and those who now arose to
grapple with the grievances and problems bequeathed to
posterity by the war period. To his genial moderating
influence we may justly ascribe the good sense which
generally characterized the efforts of the young English
democrats. His influence it was which helped to turn
it back into the old paths, and held aloft the constitu-
tional programme of 1780 as the goal of popular striv-
ings.
The adoption of a practical scheme of reform, such
as could conceivably be gained by constitutional means,
was indeed the urgent need of the time. Never was the
United Kingdom in a more parlous state than when the
crowning triumph of Waterloo placed it at the head of
the nations. It was but a short distance from the Capi-
tol of military triumph to the Tarpeian rock of sedition
and civil strife. Four short years separated Waterloo
from Peterloo. Never has a nation been more perplexed
and dismayed by the sudden drop from glory to misery,
from national exultation to civil discord, than the people
of England in iSis. 1 In this sudden awakening from
the glamour of an unparalleled military triumph to the
stern realities unveiled by peace, we may find an ex-
planation of the rapid growth of a Radicalism which was
far more deeply rooted than that of 1780, and far more
practical than that of 1790. The industrial and social
1 Lowe in his Present State of England (1823), ch. 2, remarks how un-
expected, even by experienced financiers, was the misery which came with
the peace.
16 The Rise of Democracy.
causes contributing to this discontent accordingly claim
a brief review before we examine the resulting political
efforts.
Patriots who, in the year of Waterloo, looked solely
on the surface of things, very naturally concluded that
the might of England was unbounded. They pointed
to the growth of her revenue from ^19,258,000 in 1792
(the last year before the wars) to the gigantic total of
^105,698,000 in 1814. What limits were there to her
resources, they exclaimed, when, in spite of enormous
losses in men and treasure, the prices of agricultural
produce and the rent of land had doubled within that
period? As for our manufactures, the annual value of
our exports of cotton goods had trebled in the years
1801-1814; and the growing wealth of the community
was attested by the increasingly luxurious manners
adopted by our upper and middle classes. All this was
undeniably true. It aroused the wonder and admiration
of Mr. Colquhoun, author of The Resources of the British
Empire, at the growth of wealth which seemed to be
unchecked even by all the waste of warfare.
Had these cheery optimists pursued their researches
further, they would probably have found that much of
the prosperity was of a wholly artificial character. A
good deal of it was due to the war expenditure ; and the
expenditure of energy and wealth in warfare is no more
nutritive than the process of "feeding a dog on its own
tail". Though the propertied classes gallantly met the
annual claim of two shillings in the pound on their
incomes, yet most of the financial burden was bequeathed
to future generations. After Waterloo, the nation had
to bear the burden of a national debt which amounted
in all to more than ^861,000,000, entailing a yearly
interest of ^32, 600,000. When we remember that the
currency had been debased by an influx of paper notes
of doubtful value, we can realize the intensity of the
(H416)
The Origin of English Radicalism. 17
strain resulting- from the return to ordinary conditions of
industrial and financial life. We can also understand
the popularity gained by that wrong-headed, warm-
hearted champion of the working-classes, William Cob-
bett, when he exclaimed to many an excited crowd that
the country could not and must not bear this burden,
but must make a clean sweep of the debt and then start
clear. It was, indeed, a working-man's question, when
the debt imposed an annual charge of thirty shillings
per head on every inhabitant of these islands, and when
that burden rested mainly on the necessaries of life and
the means of production. In this grievance is to be
found the chief motive power of democratic movements
after i8i5. 1 But, besides piling up an enormous debt,
the war bequeathed many other difficulties of an indus-
trial and social nature. The supremacy of our industries
and of our commerce was very largely the result of the
Napoleonic wars. Our land had undergone none of
those invasions which had all but ruined the trade and
industries of every continental country. After Trafalgar
our merchantmen sailed in comparative safety, while
French ships, and even those of the neutrals, were well-
nigh swept off the seas; and even our mighty foe con-
fessed the collapse of his efforts to strangle British trade
when his agents ordered English cloaks to supply the
French troops campaigning on the Vistula, and sugar
from the British West Indies for the imperial table.
England was the middleman between the Continent of
Europe and the rest of the world. 2 But would her
monopoly survive the advent of peace? Would not
rather her manufacturers and merchant princes be ruined
when trade resumed its natural course? The question
1 At the end of his Political Register of Oct. 5, 1816, Cobbett confidently
prophesies that the national debt will lead to parliamentary reform.
3 1 have treated this question in my article ' ' Napoleon and English Com-
merce", in the English Historical Review of Oct. 1893.
Ai (M416) B
i8 The Rise of Democracy.
was indeed most serious ; and but for our rapid advances
in labour-saving machinery, we might have suffered a
complete collapse. As it was, the value of our cotton
goods exported sank from ^"20,600,000 in 1815, to an
average of ; 16,400,000 for the next decade; while the
decline in the value of the woollen goods exported was
so persistent as not to be made up, until the reforms of
Sir Robert Peel breathed new life into our industries.
The gravity of the social crisis which faced us after
Waterloo will be realized if we glance very briefly at the
industrial changes then progressing in our land. The in-
vention of spinning-machines by Hargreaves, Crompton,
and others in the years 1764-1779, and the subsequent
application of steam-power had already begun to ruin
the spinning-wheel industry, by which wives and daugh-
ters had often kept the wolf from the door; and after
1803 Dr. Cartwright's power-loom began to press hard
on hand-loom weavers. Toil as these Silas Marners
might, they could not successfully compete with untiring
machinery, every improvement in which reduced the
price of cloth, and ground them down into the ever-
rising stratum of wage-earners. Two facts will suffice
to illustrate the magnitude of the changes brought
about by the alchemy of steam-power. Mr. Gaskell, the
author of a work Artisans and Machinery, has com-
puted that the cost price of a "piece" of cloth of the
same quality was reduced in the years 18001820 from
twenty-five to eight shillings; and that enlightened
manufacturer, Robert Owen, whose social aims will be
described in the following chapter, stated to a committee
of the House of Commons in 1816 that the cotton-mills
of Great Britain were then producing as much as could
be made by eighty millions of operatives working with-
out machinery. These startling assertions reveal the
causes of our wealth during the great war when the
Continental peoples were industrially dependent on us,
The Origin of English Radicalism. 19
and of the distress which overtook us when those nations,
turning- to the pursuits of peace, began to imitate our
inventions and encroach on our markets. The brunt of
the distress caused by over-production and the fall of
prices, was of course felt most acutely by the wage-
earners, who clustered about that cheerless nucleus of
modern life the factory.
But the misery, which was to be the chief propelling
power of democracy in England, was fed from yet an-
other source. Side by side with these industrial changes,
an agricultural revolution had slowly but surely ruined
our sturdy yeomen farmers, and had often dispossessed
peasants of small but invaluable rights over common
fields and common pasturage. The chang-es had begun
in the earlier half of the previous century, when the
general cultivation of root-crops broke up the old waste-
ful system of farming on the open fields and necessitated
enclosure and the application of improved methods. But
these changes, which, according to Arthur Young, might
have been beneficial even to the peasantry had they been
carried out gradually and wisely, were forced on with
feverish activity under the stimulus of the great war,
when the price of wheat often rose to 6 a quarter.
The Napoleonic war cut us off from free intercourse
with the Baltic lands, on which we had mainly to rely;
the United States were closed to our ships ; and no one
had ever dreamt of importing corn from La Plata and
India, much less from our feeble settlements in Australia.
In face of the risk of actual famine which confronted us
in wet summers, there was every need to increase the
yield of corn ; and long experience had shown that this
could only be achieved by enclosing the open fields,
often worked on the old communal system, and by adopt-
ing improved methods of husbandry on large holdings.
As many as 1931 parishes in England and Wales applied
to Parliament during the war period for powers to enclose
20 The Rise of Democracy.
their "open " fields and common lands; and even when,
after Waterloo, prices fell to their normal level, enclosures
continued in diminished numbers.
The chief results of these enclosures were an enormous
increase in the agricultural wealth of the country, and a
lamentable falling off in the independence of the peas-
antry.
" 111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay."
Thus Goldsmith had warned us of the social evils which
would result from the enclosure of commons; and the
vision of the poet was on the whole as true as the argu-
ments of the agricultural reformers who advocated the
change. Many a parish was severely crippled by the
expense of gaining the special act of Parliament which
was required; and the reallotment of the common fields
and wastes gave many opportunities for sheer robbery.
In these cases, we may imagine, the iron of injustice
drove deep into the minds of the dispossessed cotters,
as they left the country, or sank to the position of wage-
earners. Even where there was no fraud, the poor and
the shiftless benefited little by a change which demanded
the application of skill, energy, and capital to the soil.
Myriads of peasants who had jogged along comfortably
on the produce of their arable plots and pasturage rights,
eking it out, perhaps, by work at the spinning-wheel and
the hand-loom, now saw all hope of independence vanish
when science came to be applied to agriculture as well
as to manufactures. Previously they had been half
"manufacturers", half farmers; but the specialization
of callings which marks the nineteenth century was
sooner or later fatal to their nondescript existence.
They fell, as it were, between two stools; and those
who had neither the money nor the energy to become
skilled manufacturers or successful farmers, sank to the
The Origin of English Radicalism. 21
position of day-labourers on the land, or floated away
as social drift-wood into the seething eddies of the new
factory townships.
In his thoughtful inquiry into the development of
human society, Mr. Kidd has pointed out that changes
which have developed the nation's resources have been
fatal to the independence and welfare of the individual.
It may be questioned whether the remark is as widely
applicable as is claimed by that able writer. But it
certainly is true of the manufacturing and agricultural
changes which were in progress at the time of the great
war. The events of the war rendered those changes far
more sudden, and therefore more harmful to our social
system, than they would otherwise have been. The
monopoly enjoyed by our manufacturers and merchants
during the war gave to our trade an unhealthy stimulus,
the ruinous effects of which were acutely felt after the
return to ordinary conditions. The same remark applies
to our rural life. The monopoly in food-supply enjoyed
by our landlords and farmers in these islands forced on
a change which might perhaps otherwise have been
gradual and devoid of evil social results. The nation
was saved from financial ruin by being able suddenly to
draw upon two almost unworked sources of wealth ; but
the drain was really at the expense of future vitality.
Our commerce and agriculture were apparently never so
flourishing as in the year of Waterloo ; but the show of
prosperity was gained at the expense of industrial and
social changes which were deeply resented by our
working-classes.
There were special reasons why this resentment should
take a political form. Any inquiry into the details of
public expenditure sufficed to convict government of
reckless extravagance and a shameless prodigality in
the bestowal of sinecures. Indeed, many a champion
of retrenchment and reform jumped to the wholly erro-
22 The Rise of Democracy.
neous conclusion that the war against Napoleon had
been got up for the benefit of the governing classes.
This contention, as absurd as it was unpatriotic, very
properly doomed the opposition to impotence, until the
great struggle for European independence had been
fought and won. The dawn of peace tended to restore
the old relations of parties. The Tories were the cham-
pions not only of monarchical prerogatives, but also of
many of the regulations adopted by Pitt and his fol-
lowers to check the progress of French democratic ideas.
The Whig party, which had been cleft asunder by the
schism of Burke and Fox, and had been further weakened
by the adoption of a nagging anti-national policy through
the war period, now began to recover something of its old
prestige. Not that it had as yet definitely adopted the
policy of parliamentary reform. Disgusted by the failure
of democracy on the Continent, and by the schism which
it had caused in the once formidable Whig party, the
leaders held suspiciously aloof from this dangerous
principle until the efforts of working-men democrats
again forced the question into the sphere of ' ' practical
politics ". For the present, only the more adventurous
Whigs lent any support to " radical reformers " in their
efforts to annul or mitigate the harsh legislation of
the war period. The independent attitude of artisan
reformers can readily be understood in the light of
partisan politics of the time, and by the lurid glare shed
from industrial and agrarian grievances. Thefr industrial
independence was gone ; they had become wage-earners,
and yet they were forbidden by law to combine for any
purpose. Prevented from combination for a rise of
wages, they saw Parliament pass a law which seemed
to be designed solely to keep up the price of corn in the
interests of landlords and farmers. Indignation made
them politicians. The determination to gain the right
of combination in trade-unions, and to secure bread
The Origin of English Radicalism. 23
at its natural price, inevitably led the leaders of the
labouring classes to press for a drastic measure of electoral
reform. Out of the depressing- conditions of their homes
discontent arose as naturally as malaria from a marsh.
With little artificial aid from any agitators, except from
one who will presently be noticed, the two most
characteristic working-class movements of our day
Trade-unionism and Chartism began to gather force
and volume. The former aimed at confronting master
manufacturers with an equality of power; while the
Radicals, and later the Chartists, hoped to restore to the
working-classes all, and more than all, their old rights
through the instrumentality of Parliament.
It was natural that the attention of working-men
should first be directed to electoral reform. In the
autumn of 1815 our legislators passed the famous Corn
Law, with the aim of keeping up the average price of
wheat to about eighty shillings per quarter, a price
which was declared to be "reasonable between the
farmer, landlord, and public ". Until home corn had
reached that price, foreign corn was to be completely
excluded from our ports. Had this Corn Law been
passed as a temporary expedient for preventing the
sudden collapse of our greatest industry, few reasonable
men would have agitated against it. The average price
of wheat in the previous five years had been close on a
hundred shillings a quarter; and the farmers, whose toil
had saved the country from starvation, might reasonably
claim some guarantee against a headlong fall in the
price of corn, such as might probably result from the
advent of peace. But the Parliament of landlords ap-
parently desired that the Corn Law of 1815 should be
permanent, and that the rapid growth of our population
should drive wheat up to a price which now appeared
"reasonable" to them, though it was nearly double the
average price of the years 1760-1790. The men of
24 The Rise of Democracy.
London and Westminster made vehement demonstra-
tions against the bill during its discussion. It was in
vain. The bill became law. The marked preference
thus shown for the interests of the country over those of
the towns led to various disturbances. Bakers' shops
were pillaged; and the popular excitement, after once
breaking bounds, portended indiscriminate destruction.
Bands of operatives roamed through the factory town-
ships, smashing the new hated machines; and dis-
charged soldiers and sailors often joined the rioters, to
show their hatred of a government which neglected them
while it pampered the Prince Regent and his minions.
Amidst the ferment in the towns the followers of a Dr.
Spence, who desired a general levelling of property,
found a favourable opportunity of disseminating their
ideas ; and, as will presently appear, one of their meet-
ings was to have a noteworthy result. Misery breeds
political nostrums as rapidly as an epidemic favours the
sale of quack remedies: and it may be questioned
whether the English public has ever been so plied with
infallible recipes of the "Morrison" type as in the
generation succeeding Waterloo. That an ignorant
populace, when oppressed by grievous burdens, when per-
plexed by strange symptoms, when distracted by rival
nostrums, should ultimately have selected the means
which have peacefully tended to the healing of the body
politic, argues a statesmanlike instinct which is surely
unequalled in the world's history. Among the restora-
tive processes which have been at work, democracy of
the English type may certainly be reckoned as one of
the chief. We are now in a position to understand the
chief steps in the renovation of the nation's life.
The outlook in 1816 was certainly gloomy. States-
men and people were alike perplexed by the increase of
misery and discontent, when they had looked for peace
and prosperity. The discontent, though wide-spread,
The Origin of English Radicalism. 25
was vague and purposeless, until by the action of a
group of Radicals, whose chief thinkers will be noticed
in the next chapter, it became concentrated on a demand
for a complete reform of Parliament. Foremost among
the more popular champions of Radicalism stands a burly
and pugnacious personage who claims some attention.
Few Englishmen of this century have exerted a wider
and more powerful influence on the progress of demo-
cracy than William Cobbett. His position as the first
English newspaper editor who caught the ear of the
people and made the press a permanent power, would
entitle him to notice here, even if he had not given a
powerful impulse to parliamentary reform. That he did
not earn for himself the higher renown of a legislative
reformer was due to the strange defects which marred
an otherwise striking character. His personality, like
his career, is a tissue of inconsistencies and contradictions.
The son of a farmer of Farnham in Surrey, he spent his
youth as a copying clerk in Gray's Inn. To escape
from this drudgery, he enlisted as a soldier and served
for seven years under the union-jack in Nova Scotia,
occupying his leisure time there with study and court-
ship. Returning to England, he obtained his discharge
in 1791 and proceeded to France, where he learnt the
language and declaimed against the Revolution with all
the fervour of a devoted royalist. On the approach of
war between France and England, he set sail for
America; and, as a bookseller in Philadelphia, he strove,
in a paper called the Porcupine, to prick the bubbles of
democratic enthusiasm. The success of his royalist
propaganda may be measured by his own statement,
that there were in that city about ten thousand persons
who would have rejoiced to see him murdered, while not
more than fifty would have stirred an inch to save him.
He next flitted to his native shores, there to live in the
turmoil ever dear to him ; and as the English government
26 The Rise of Democracy.
was exceedingly unpopular, he gave it the support of
his fretful quills. But a change came over the spirit
of the Porcupine, or the Weekly Register as he now re-
named it. A slight from the frigid William Pitt changed
the loyalty of the editor to bitter dislike of the govern-
ment, which was later on envenomed by the imposition
of a heavy fine and two years' imprisonment for certain
libellous articles. Thenceforth the cloak of Tom Paine
fell on Cobbett's shoulders, together with a double
portion of his mordant powers of sarcasm and abuse.
He reduced the price of his Register to twopence, and
held up to execration not only the government but all
who differed from him. He therefore had abundant
materials at hand for his facile pen. The abuses of
government were notorious; and his impulsive and
vindictive temperament constantly brought him into
collision with nearly all prominent men, even those of
the opposition. The Radical member for Westminster,
Sir Francis Burdett, on whom Cobbett had showered
praises as the saviour of the country, was suddenly de-
nounced as the type of all that was mean and base;
Hunt "the patriot" shrank into Hunt "the greatest of
liars" ; and O'Connell, from being "the glory of Ireland",
was execrated as "a vile vagabond ". Genial and good-
natured though he was at home, stout and hearty
though he was in physique, Cobbett almost rivalled
Rousseau in the morbid sensitiveness which was ever
detecting imaginary insults, and in the persistence with
which he nursed his revenge. Such men may initiate a
movement, but they are the ruin of every party or asso-
ciation which they seek to found or regulate.
And yet the bluff south countryman was not without
his sterling qualities. His determination to educate
himself and his fellows was to have a most important
influence on English working-men of that period. His
sketches of home-life and of the joy of training a family
The Origin of English Radicalism. 27
revealed new possibilities to the men of that generation ;
and in his Rural Rides, the descriptions of scenery and
the dog-like patience of our peasantry are presented with
the freshness and pathos of Rousseau himself. The
enormous mass and unfailing vigour of his writings
evoked from the Standard the startling statement that
he was unrivalled since the time of Swift for clearness,
force, and power of copious illustration. For "twenty-
nine years eleven weeks only excepted" his weekly
paper regularly appeared to excite the interest or the
passions of our people. It is true that its variety and
vigour were largely due to the almost canine pugnacity
of the editor, and to other qualities which favour the
output of "copy". So numerous were the water-tight
compartments of his brain that he could freely dismiss
the memory of past errors and gleefully proceed to
alienate newly -made allies or cudgel another set of
opponents, while the vigour and sustained power of his
attacks gained the admiration of an athletic people, even
apart from the respect felt for his manly exposure of
political abuses.
Such was the man who now led the popular demand
for a drastic reform of Parliament. In his paper of
October 26, 1816, he demanded that the House of Com-
mons should be elected annually by all the tax-payers of
the land', and that all other questions should be secondary
to this. " Let us have this reform first, and all other
good things will be given unto us." This determined
agitation commenced by Cobbett may be considered the
definite commencement of Radicalism in its nineteenth-
century guise. Others, it is true, had agitated for yet
larger demands; but, for reasons which we have now
considered, they had made no permanent impression
on our people. Now, however, amidst the distress
which followed on the great war, Cobbett's agitation
was to have important results.
2 8 The Rise of Democracy.
Samuel Bamford, a weaver of Middleton near Man-
chester, records in his memoirs that the comparative
absence of riots after 1816 was due to Cobbett's advice
to working-men to agitate for a complete reform of
Parliament, and that they thenceforth became deliberate
and systematic in their proceedings. They started
"Hampden Clubs" in all the towns and villages of
South Lancashire, and speakers crossed the Pennines
to stir up the more apathetic Yorkshiremen. Delegates
of the federated clubs drew up a political programme
which demanded annual election of Parliaments; exclu-
sion of all "placemen"; that every man of more than
eighteen years of age, who paid taxes, should have a
vote ; that every 20,000 inhabitants should send a member
to the House of Commons; and that "talent and virtue
should be the only qualifications necessary" for mem-
bers.
This early stage of the Radical movement was marked
at least in the provinces by a constant reliance on
moral suasion, and by a determination to hand over to
the police any who advocated violent methods. But the
more impressionable Londoners provoked a contest with
the government, which marred the prospects of the
movement. The pillage of shops consequent on a mass
meeting held in November, 1816, at Spa Fields, near
Islington, was followed by repressive measures of so
drastic a nature that freedom of speech and of meeting
was, for the time, at an end ; and Cobbett retired to
America. 1 These measures roused so bitter a feeling in
the Hampden Clubs, that several of the Scottish clubs
bound themselves by oath to further their cause "either
by moral or by physical strength, as the case may re-
1 Even the Union Debating Society at Cambridge was for a time sup-
pressed. Macaulay, then at Trinity College, had a striking proof of the
results of suppressing public meetings. While the townsmen were asserting
their indignation in a riot, the future historian received a dead cat full in
the face.
The Origin of English Radicalism. 29
quire" the first sign of that divergence of aim which
later on was to divide the Chartists.
Indeed, the Radical movement of the years 1816-1819
curiously foreshadows the Chartist movement, which
was to be its complete expression. There was at both
epochs a desire on the part of nearly all the first leaders
to pursue strictly legal methods; there was the same
growth of indignation among the masses of the people
at the apathy of Parliament; the same split into the
"moral force" and "physical force" sections, the same
collapse of the efforts of the more daring spirits, and the
same final gain of the more practicable proposals of the
"moral force" men.
The breach between the operatives and Parliament
yawned wider in the years 1817 to 1819. The deepen-
ing distress of those years, enhanced by a return from a
paper-money system to cash payments, would alone have
produced rebellious feelings ; but these were fanned into
a flame by the lavish expenditure on pensions, sinecures,
and the tawdry splendour of the Regent's court. The
Hampden Clubs, debarred from open debate, began to
drill their members, ostensibly for the more orderly
management of great mass meetings, when these, in
1818, again became legal; but their ulterior aim pro-
bably was to overawe Parliament by a display of physical
force.- Yet, even in these mass meetings the proceedings
were at first quite orderly. The men of Birmingham
adopted a novel method of protesting against the elec-
toral absurdities which excluded their town from direct
representation in Parliament, and gave to thirteen Cor-
nish villages far more legislative power than was then
enjoyed by all the new manufacturing towns of Great
Britain. On the advice of the veteran reformer Major
Cartwright, the citizens of the great midland town
assembled in mass meeting and chose a Radical Stafford-
shire baronet, Sir Charles Wolseley, to act as "legisla-
30 The Rise of Democracy.
torial attorney" for Birmingham, and to present their
claims in person to the House of Commons. Had they
acted in the spirit of our old English constitution, they
might with equal reason have sent him as their member;
for it is certain that the Witan, or councillors who
shared with the Saxon kings the right of making laws,
were chosen by the shout of the people at their folk-
moots. There was nothing revolutionary in the action
of the men of Birmingham; but unluckily their legisla-
torial attorney, inflated with pride at his unique title,
uttered a seditious harangue at Stockport, which lodged
him in the county jail. Nothing daunted, the men of
Manchester determined to elect a " legislatorial attorney",
and arranged a monster meeting to be held in St. Peter's
Field, just outside their town, under the presidency of
"Orator" Hunt.
Their choice of a chairman could scarcely have been
more unwise, had they designed to arouse the fears of
the rich and the passions of the poor. Society had made
Henry Hunt lord of the manor of Glastonbury; but
nature had made him an agitator. His restless tempera-
ment, fluent tongue, powerful voice, and morbid vanity,
found in the mass meetings of the north a more con-
genial sphere than in the humdrum proceedings of the
court leet of Glastonbury. That the storms of Parlia-
ment called forth his best efforts may be seen in this
contemporary sketch of him in Blackwood's Magazine :
"A comely, tall, rosy, white-headed, mean-looking, well-
gartered tradesman, of, I take it, 60. His only merits
are his impudence and his voice, both unique. In vain
do all sides of the House of Commons unite to cough,
shuffle, groan, and shout. He pauses for a moment,
until the clamour is at its height, and then, re-pitching
his notes, apparently without an effort, lifts his halloo
as clear and distinct above the storm as ever ye heard a
minster bell tolling over the racket of a village wake."
The Origin of English Radicalism. 31
These powers, however, count for little unless controlled
and directed by a well-balanced brain, of the possession
of which Hunt could not be accused by his bitterest foes.
In his nature the emotions held unchallenged sway; and
his rancorous oratory helped to infect a whole generation
with a passion for invective, until the quieter style of
Cobden and Bright restored to our platform oratory its
earlier dignity. When Hunt faced a throng of reformers
to ventilate some grievance, his figure seemed instinct
with suppressed fury; his eyes became distended and
almost blood-shot; his griped hand beat the air as if to
annihilate the Tory ministers; and his whole manner
betokened a vehemence of passion which at times could
scarcely find utterance. With such a chairman, the St.
Peter's Field meeting could scarcely fail to end in a
" Peterloo".
Secret drills on the Lancashire moors had also alarmed
the authorities ; and when dense columns of men began
to march to Manchester on the morning of August 12,
the troops and the yeomanry were held in readiness.
Yet the operatives of Lancashire carried no arms ; they
were dressed in their Sunday best; and the laurels
carried by their front ranks betokened a peaceable
demonstration, as was further shown by the mottoes on
their banners "Liberty and Fraternity", "Parliaments
Annual", "Suffrage Universal", and "No Corn Laws".
One black banner, displaying the threatening words
"Equal Representation or Death", seemed to recall the
times of Danton and Marat; but in general the vast
demonstration promised an observance of the best tradi-
tions ot the land of Hampden.
A mighty shout was raised when Hunt appeared on
the wagons that formed the hustings, and yet the
magistrates determined to serve then and there the writ
of arrest which the orator had brought on himself by
some frothy talk about the bloody butchers of Waterloo.
32 The Rise of Democracy.
The constables bearing the writ, and their escort of
yeomanry, were soon wedged in among the crowd;
whereupon the magistrates ordered the hussars to liber-
ate the volunteer horsemen, who were now beginning to
ply their swords in grim earnest. As the cavalry swept
into the densely-packed field, the crowd broke into a
panic-stricken rush ; and the space which had been filled
with a good-humoured, orderly throng, speedily became
a scene of wild disorder, strewn with torn banners,
maimed and bleeding figures, and ghastly heaps of
writhing humanity at the further edge of the field.
There were comparatively few deaths, for the hussars
never disgraced their swords by using the edge; but
the wounds lavishly dealt by the volunteer horsemen
aroused a feeling of class hatred, which was intensified
when government approved the action of the magistrates
and struck a medal in honour of the exploits of the
yeomanry. The gag was again stringently applied by
Parliament in the repressive measures known as the Six
Acts ; and the tide of democratic feeling was dammed up
for a time, until, gathering strength from sheer indigna-
tion, it swept away many of the old oligarchical barriers
in the Reform Bill of 1832.
Chapter II.
Radicals and the Reform Bill of 1832.
The foregoing sketch of the Radical movement of
1816-1819 is a necessary introduction to the study of the
later democratic movement; for only those who have
realized the orderly character of the earlier democratic
agitation, and the indignation caused by its brutal re-
pression, can possibly understand either the pent-up
Radicals and the Reform Bill of 1832. 33
enthusiasm for reform which forced on the measure of
1832, or the disappointment at its immediate results.
But other influences were also at work, tending to
discredit our old political system and to emphasize the
demand for reform. An intellectual movement was
gathering such force as to portend ruin to all institutions
which could not justify their existence. In the France
of 1789 the crash of the revolutionary storm had been
heralded by premonitory mutterings and by protests of
leading thinkers; and so too in England the same
warnings might be observed by the weather-wise. A
great Italian thinker has said that ideas rule the world,
and that what we call a revolution is but the passage of
an idea from theory to practice. Certain it is that no
great and abiding change has ever taken place in the
body politic without some premonition from the brain
politic. The general course of the reform movement
was what had been foretold by our chief thinkers, the
most prominent among whom, in the years 1800-1830,
was Jeremy Bentham.
It would be far beyond the scope of this little work to
attempt a description of the utilitarian philosophy. Its
connection with politics, especially with the philosophic
Radicalism of which Bentham was the founder, may,
however, be understood from the central principle of his
creed the promotion of "the greatest happiness of the
greatest number". His whole system of ethics and
politics was severely utilitarian. It may indeed be
compared to an arch, which has as its key-stone this
principle, serving to unite his theoretical and political
speculations, and to interlock them in a dogmatic whole.
The new creed was soon to prove itself subversive of
modes of thought and of institutions which rested only
on prescription and tradition. Utility was a crucial test
when rigorously applied to the Gothic irregularities of
the British constitution; and Bentham was nothing if
( M 416 ) C
34 The Rise of Democracy.
not rigorous. 1 Exact methods of thought and reasoning
were to be the sole guide of the philosophic and political
inquirer. Sentiment, devotion, chivalry, appeals to the
continuity of national life, all were excluded from the
argument ; and man was treated as if he were merely a
reasoning machine, solely intent on manufacturing enjoy-
ment by logical processes. The archaic dogmatism of
the divine right of kings, the newer but equally severe
dogmatism of Rousseau and the framers of the rights
of man, were alike swept aside, because they lacked all
proof of their utility or reality. But, as generally happens
with destroyers of dogma, Bentham cleared the way for
a new and formidable dogmatism, when he insisted on
the undisputed sway of the principle of utility in politics.
Imbued with the very one-sided and almost self-cancelling
theory that man was a reasoning creature engaged in a
constant pursuit after happiness, Bentham arraigned
the institutions of his country at the utilitarian judg-
ment bar. Monarchy was condemned, the king being
sentenced as the " corrupter general" of society. Aris-
tocracy fared no better. Democracy, however, was pro-
nounced to be the sole form of rational government,
because as each man sought his own happiness, the
government of the majority would necessarily pursue
the interests and the happiness of that majority. Ben-
tham's contempt of history (which is in essence the
record of man's experience in his civic relations) here led
him into an unwarrantable assumption. Omitting all
consideration of the morality, or immorality, of the
claim, it does not follow that the collective action of
great masses of men will lead to results similar to
those gained by individuals. Still more egregious is
his blunder in assuming that what the majority aim at,
that they will realize.
1 "To know the true good of the community is what constitutes the
science of legislation ; the art consists in finding the means to realize that
good" (Bentham, Principles of Legislation, ch. i).
Radicals and the Reform Bill of 1832. 35
We must remember, however, that while Bentham's
contention for an unlimited democracy is logically un-
satisfactory, even on his own premisses, yet his scathing-
criticism of absurd laws and odious sinecures was pro-
ductive of immediate and also of far-reaching benefit. 1
It nerved with enthusiasm an eager band of disciples,
dubbed Benthamites by the public, to attempt a crusade
in and out of Parliament against the abuses of the
Georgian regime. Joseph Hume, the father of the
movement for retrenchment and reform, was reinforced
in his hitherto almost single-handed struggle against
official corruption ; and a brilliant group of men, among
whom were James Mill, and his yet more gifted son, John
Stuart Mill, along with Fonblanque, Buller, and others,
resolved to start a distinctively Radical review in which
to assert utilitarian principles. The result was the famous
Westminster Review. Its first number, which appeared
in April, 1824, contained an incisive attack on the Whigs
from the pen of the elder Mill. Beginning with a survey
of the British constitution, he showed its thoroughly
aristocratic character, seeing that a few hundred families
could return a majority of the House of Commons. He
then exhibited the tendency of an aristocracy to divide
into two factions ; whence it would naturally result that
if one party became securely installed in power the other
(the Whigs) would endeavour to oust them by invoking
the aid of public opinion, "without any essential sacri-
fice of aristocratical predominance". This and this alone
was the meaning of the occasional coquettings of the
Whigs with popular principles, as also of their chief
literary organ, the Edinburgh Review, in its skilful " see-
saw" policy on public affairs. The article is noteworthy
1 Especially in strengthening the demand for legal reform. " Bentham
found the philosophy of law what English practising lawyers had made it,
a mess." ..." Glory be to Bentham that he has been the Hercules of
this hydra " (J. S. Mill's Essay on Bentham). See also Sir F. Pollock's
History of the Science of Politics, p. 102.
36 The Rise of Democracy.
as the literary tUbut of that new philosophic Radicalism,
which was to play an important part in the formation
of public opinion. So pronounced, indeed, was the in-
tellectual movement towards democratic reform that the
younger Mill, in endeavouring to found a select political
debating society, found his chief difficulty to lie in the
dearth of defenders of existing institutions.
Events also seemed to be moving quickly even in the
unreformed Parliament. The repeal, in 1824-1825, of
the old statutes prohibiting combinations of workmen
enabled our artisans to form trade -unions, thereby
checking, at least in some industries, that fall in wages
which economists declared to be inevitable; besides
which, the power of combination for trade purposes was
to have no slight influence in the formation of political
clubs. The abolition of religious disabilities, under which
Protestant Dissenters and Roman Catholics had long
suffered, were two noteworthy concessions to the prin-
ciple of religious liberty in the years 1828 and 1829
respectively.
But far more important was the earthquake shock of
the French Revolution of July, 1830, which dethroned
the unteachable Charles X. and destroyed the old legitim-
ist claims of monarchical divine right. The results of
this startling event were felt far beyond the bounds of
France. The apparently complete triumph of democracy
in Belgium, and the popular risings which ensued in
Germany, Italy, and Poland, seemed to betoken a speedy
end of the old order of things. In few lands did the
old and the new stand in more glaring contrast than in
the United Kingdom. On the one hand was a govern-
ment venerable with the prestige of ages, yet having
little vital connection with the people whose interests
it professed to serve. The ancient glory of the mon-
archy was now tarnished by the vulgar extravagance
and cynical immorality of "the first gentleman in
Radicals and the Reform Bill of 1832. 37
Europe ". With vice and selfishness enthroned, the
tone of fashionable society and of our public life may
readily be imagined. Thanks to the persistent labours
of Joseph Hume and a few other champions of economy,
some of the worst financial abuses had been probed and
the most shameless sinecures had been abolished; but
the game of politics was still the most interesting and
profitable of occupations, at least for the victors. A
whole generation spent in opposition had sufficed to
convert the bulk of the Whig party to the cause of
reform, for which, when in power, they had done so
little in the previous century.
Certainly they could now make out a good case
against the existing parliamentary system. By a strange
clinging to old customs, so characteristic of our race,
the old system of election and representation, which for
Plantagenet England was truly democratic, had under-
gone scarcely any change during more than two cen-
turies. The policy of the United Kingdom was largely
controlled by decayed boroughs or mere hamlets, which
were the political property of neighbouring magnates.
Out of the 658 members of the House of Commons, as
many as 424 were returned either on the nomination or
the recommendation of patrons; and it was notorious
that ^5000 was the average price paid by an aspirant
for political honours to the "borough -monger", the
bargain being often rounded off by the proviso that the
member should pay ^1000 for every year which he
passed in the parliamentary preserves. The inequalities
of the representation and of the franchise were equally
grotesque. Scotland returned forty-five members to
Parliament, and Cornwall returned forty-four; but this
inequality in individual voting power was not so great
as would appear on the surface, for in the whole of
Scotland there were less than five thousand voters. In
the parliamentary boroughs of Great Britain the fran-
38 The Rise of Democracy.
chise presented the strangest irregularities. In some
towns the mayor and corporation, in others the freemen,
returned the members to Parliament; while elsewhere
the right of voting was enjoyed by all who inhabited
tenements possessing a fireplace. Well might Heine
declare in 1830 that England was congealed in a medi-
aeval condition. But under the ice-bound surface of law
and custom there was rising a vernal flood-tide which
threatened a veritable debacle. The forces of nature
revealed by the great inventors, Hargreaves, Crompton,
Watt, and Stephenson, were working every year with
greater potency. A new England, grimy, amorphous,
but gifted with the irresistible expansiveness of a vigor-
ous life, was now beginning to burst the crust of the
old England. This new energy had no outlet in Parlia-
ment; it was scarcely recognized in the statute-book,
but it was now fully determined to assert its powers.
The contest between the squirearchy and the indus-
trial interest renewed in a nineteenth-century guise the
struggle ever going on in a progressive society between
the privileged and the non-privileged classes; but rarely
have the omens threatened civil disturbance more than
in the England of 1830. Burdened by an extravagant
court, a heedless Parliament, a crushing load of debt, its
social system warped and strained by an industrial revolu-
tion quite unparalleled in the annals of mankind, the
United Kingdom seemed beset with difficulties. The
onward rush of political ideas was at least as threatening
in pre-reform England as it had been in pre-revolu-
tionary France; and yet, though steam was being
rapidly generated in the out-worn governmental machine,
many of the engineers seemed to see safety only in
stopping the safety-valve.
A fortunate concurrence of circumstances saved us
from an explosion. George IV. conferred his only
benefit on this world by leaving it shortly before the
Radicals and the Reform Bill of 1832. 39
French Revolution of 1830; and the elections to a new
Parliament, held amid the excitement caused by that
event, sent up a majority of reformers to Westminster,
thus compelling" the old system to pronounce its own
doom, and installing- a Whig ministry under Earl Grey,
in place of that of the Duke of Wellington. The acces-
sion of the popular sailor king, William IV., who was
in favour of reform, further served to rally the people
around our old institutions and avert a catastrophe. A
measure was now drawn up by the cabinet, which pro-
posed to give votes to all tenants of a ,20 rental, but
on the protest of Lord Brougham, backed up by a mass
meeting of the men of Newcastle, the limit was extended
to " ten-pounders ". Another change was less satis-
factory. Lord Durham ardently desired to include in
the Reform Bill a proposal for voting by ballot, but this
was ruled out at the express wish of the prime-minister.
Yet, although the Reform Bill came far short of the
desires of thorough-going democrats, it elicited from so
ardent a reformer as Joseph Hume the statement that
he was surprised and gratified by its proposals.
Instead of telling the oft-told tale of the parliamentary
struggle for the Reform Bills of 1831 and 1832, it will
be more profitable and interesting to examine the artisan
movements of the time which prevented the famous Act
of 1832 from enjoying that finality which its champions
claimed for it.
Judging from the Whig historians and biographers,
one would draw the conclusion that the masses of the
people were completely unanimous in their support of
the Bill. Nothing could be more misleading. The
reformers, far from marching in a compact phalanx
against the oligarchical stronghold, formed two separate
columns of attack, one marching with all the pomp and
pageantry of war, the other ill-organized, leaderless,
preceded by no martial music, and mute, save for the
40 The Rise of Democracy.
defiant shouts which betokened its ardour. Even amidst
the assault, these allied forces viewed each other with
something of the dislike which exists between regulars
and guerrillas; and after the banner of reform was
planted on the walls of Old Sarum, the disputes which
had been occasionally heard amid all the din of battle,
burst forth with ever-increasing animosity. The course
of the reform struggle of 1831-1832 is of importance, not
only owing to the extension of the franchise which im-
mediately resulted, but also because it led the irregulars
to organize themselves, and draw up a programme,
which, as will be seen, contained nearly all the watch-
words of the Chartists.
The progress of this Radical vanguard has nowhere
been so well described as in the manuscript notes on
Working' Men's Associations, left by Mr. Francis Place
as materials to serve the historian of this period. In
these notes there is a mine of information as to the early
history of the Radical and Chartist movement; and their
value is enhanced by the usually calm and unbiassed
judgment of the writer. Francis Place was by trade
a master tailor, who had built up a good business at
Charing Cross; but his ambition was not limited to his
shop and his bank account. In the words of the old
Hebrew Scriptures, which attribute the characteristics
of certain callings to famous founders, we might say
that Place was the father of latter-day radical tailors.
His shop was a veritable Cave of Adullam, a resort for
all the disaffected who conspired to change the laws at
Westminster; and such was his organizing power and
quiet tenacity of purpose, that in 1824 he won a great
social and political triumph in skilfully preparing the way
for the abolition of the odious Combination Law of 1797,
which had crushed any trade -union of working-men.
His long investigation of the evil effects of state inter-
ference had made him a sturdy upholder of individual
Radicals and the Reform Bill of 1832. 41
liberty of the laisser faire type, and a decided opponent
of Robert Owen's State Socialism. He was therefore
well fitted to criticise the schemes of the Owenites, who
had so much to do with the drafting- of the Charter ; and
the thousands of neatly written pages of his Journal,
which is now in the British Museum, attest alike his
tailor-like neatness, his unimaginative dulness, and his
determination to be not only the chronicler but the
org-anizer of democratic movements. Occasionally the
suppressed fire of his resentment flashes forth, as in
the statement that the government of the country was
"a perpetual cheat, a fraudulent game at fictitious
honours and real emoluments, a continual practice of
pompous meanness founded on the absurd reverence the
people have long been taught to pay to the aristocracy".
But such outbursts rarely relieve the monotony of his
painfully precise narrative. Much as he hated the abuses
of the old oligarchy, he also saw the danger of events
moving too fast, and giving power to those who desired
to wipe out the national debt and effect a forcible re-
distribution of wealth. He trembled to see the feebleness
of the old order, and the scrambles for place of two
effete factions, eyed with growing malignity by the
democratic Caliban. The dangers of the time nerved
him to struggle for an advanced measure of reform
which should purify and strengthen the government,
and gain time for the instruction of the masses in the fit
use of the political power for which they were clamour-
ing. His apprehensions were shared by many even of
the advanced Radicals, who had good reason to know
how the leaven of communism was permeating our
working-classes, owing to the alluring teachings of
Robert Owen and Lieutenant Hodgkin.
As Robert Owen may justly be regarded as the founder
of English Socialism, Co-operation, and indirectly of
Chartism, a brief sketch of his views will not be out of
43 The Rise of Democracy.
place here. The strange chances which raised him from
the position of draper's apprentice to that of a partner
in a flourishing- firm of Manchester manufacturers, and
in 1800 installed him as chief partner at the New Lanark
Mills, imprinted on his quietly tenacious nature the
belief that external circumstances decided not only a
man's career, but also his whole character and conduct.
Fortunately for his work-people, this usually noxious
creed was transformed by the sunshine of his beneficent
nature into a source of life-giving activity and persistent
endeavour to mould his "hands" at New Lanark until
they should become "fully formed men and women".
Spacious dining and lecture halls attested his care for
their physical and mental welfare. His sale of provisions
to them at nearly cost price, and distribution of the profits
of this store, marked him out as the father of Co-opera-
tion in our land; and his profit-sharing arrangements
gained him the same honour in regard to "industrial
partnership ". But his plans embraced not only the
present welfare of his operatives, but also the perfecting
of the human race, by means of enlightened education
and equalization of opportunities. By beginning with
the young, even with the very infants, he so far succeeded
with the tough Scottish nature that he claimed for his
theories a universal application, and proposed to re-
generate the human race by mapping out the earth in
quadrangular communities, where, as some wag said,
everything was to be common except common sense.
Mankind, in fact, was to be born again in an ever-ex-
panding series of industrial parallelograms, where wealth
and poverty, religion and family life, were ultimately to
give place to the customs of an idealized rabbit warren.
Such was the prospect set forth in mild, yet inflexible
language by the prophet of New Lanark. It is not sur-
prising that amidst the deepening distress which followed
after Waterloo the more ardent of our operatives imbibed
Radicals and the Reform Bill of 1832. 43
these ideas with an enthusiasm which was not quickly
damped either by the dimness of the seer's vision into
the future, or by his rigorous autocracy in the arrange-
ment of details. Owen's visit to the United States gave
the more restively practical of his disciples the oppor-
tunity of starting co-operative societies on what they
thought to be workable lines, only to meet with a chilling
rebuke on the prophet's return. Dissensions hindered
the growth of the regenerating parallelograms as well
as of these early co-operative societies; but on the
collapse of the parent society the remaining members
started The National Union of the Working -classes
(April, 1831), in order to gain the political enfranchise-
ment which seemed to present the readiest means for
securing a redistribution of wealth and equality of
opportunity. The formation of this union was the
chief political result of the movement initiated by Owen.
It was the work of his followers, not of the seer himself;
for he ever regarded the new Radicalism with the sus-
picion and dislike natural to his autocratic character.
But there was another writer whose influence was, for
a time, scarcely second to that of Owen, namely, Lieu-
tenant Hodgkin. He seems to have injured his prospects
in the navy by a pamphlet on the injustice and iniquity
of the press-gang system. While vegetating on the
half-pay list, he published another pamphlet, which still
more clearly marked him out as a dangerous man.
This work, entitled Labour Defended against the Claims
of Capital (1825), claimed to prove that labour was the
sole source of wealth, that only producers had any right
to a share of the world's wealth, and that in a society
thus reconstructed all law must be abolished, as not only
useless but harmful. These theories (which curiously
foreshadow those of Proudhon and Bakunin) were set
forth in small twopenny reprints and formed the chief
stock-in-trade of the "unstamped" press of that date.
44 The Rise of Democracy.
The following lines, composed by "one of the know-
nothings ", show the working of the popular conscious-
ness on the wage-fund theories of Hodgkin and Ricardo:
"'Wages should form the price of goods'.
Yes ! Wages should be all :
Then we who work to make the goods
Should justly have them all.
But if their price be made of rent,
Tithes, taxes, profits all,
Then we who work to make the goods
' Should have just none at all V
A study of the inner workings of the people's mind at
that period will serve to elucidate many questions which
are otherwise difficult to understand. For instance, the
extraordinary enthusiasm on behalf of the Reform Bill is
hard to account for on the ground merely of a desire for
electoral purity; but it becomes intelligible in the light
of Mr. Place's assertion, that the bulk of the operatives
believed the Bill destined to prepare the way for a redis-
tribution of property. Viewed in this light, the Bristol
and Nottingham riots might well cause frantic alarm to
the propertied classes, which regarded the wanton de-
struction there perpetrated as merely a foretaste of mob-
rule. Hence also, we may add, the dislike with which
even the new reformed government regarded co-opera-
tive societies, workmen's political associations, and a
cheap press, as alike designed to subvert the framework
of society.
It must be admitted that the action of several of the
new Radical clubs seemed 'to justify those fears. The
Leeds Radical Union, in Feb. 1832, alarmed the moneyed
classes by a declaration that the men who as yet had no
votes were not responsible for the national debt, which
was the work only of the Whig and Tory factions.
Even more ominous was a proposal put forth by a
ranting coffee-house keeper of the Strand, named Ben-
Radicals and the Reform Bill of 1832. 45
bow, that the working-classes should strike work for a
whole month a Sacred Month dedicated to the claims
of labour. In a pamphlet published by him in Jan. 1832
he hashed up the arguments of Hodgkin, and proceeded
to the practical application that the people ought to
seize and divide all property, in case the present owners
should not be sufficiently impressed by the Sacred Month
to consent to its peaceful redistribution. The pamphlet
was embellished by the quotation of many texts of
Scripture in justification of this step "The cattle upon
a thousand hills are mine " being cited as proof that all
oxen might be appropriated by the needy. Eager hopes
and fears were aroused by the pamphlet some opera-
tives believing that the Sacred Month began when the
pamphlet appeared.
Amidst all this balderdash we can discern some de-
mands of a more practical nature. The Radicals of Leeds
demanded the repeal of all taxes pressing on the working-
classes. The National Union of the Working-classes de-
clared that indirect taxation (i.e. taxation on the materials
or processes of industry as well as on articles of con-
sumption) was a means of upholding monopoly and cor-
ruption, and ought to be abolished; whereas graduated
taxes on property would compel the rich to refund some
of the wealth which their laws had extracted from the
poor; that taxation and parliamentary representation
ought to be coextensive ; and that those who were ex-
cluded from the franchise ought to be free from taxation,
and from service in the militia.
It was clear, however, that these changes could never
be brought about until Parliament represented the will
of the people of England far more completely than was
contemplated in the Whig Reform Bills. Radicals, ac-
cordingly, insisted on a drastic reform of the House of
Commons, and sought to press on the political clubs to
more daring demands than their founders had ever
46 The Rise of Democracy.
formulated. Associations like the Birmingham Political
Union had already been framed to support the Whigs
against the borough -mongers, and carry Lord John
Russell's Reform Bill. But there was some danger of
these local clubs and unions falling into the hands of
faddists and losing all unity of aim. This was especially
the case with the Birmingham Political Union, a power-
ful association which threatened to march 100,000 Mid-
landers to London to find out why the Reform Bill did
not become law. While it was a question of intimidating
the Duke of Wellington, the reformers of Birmingham
presented a united front; but those who looked beneath
the surface saw that the Birmingham leaders were not
democrats, but fussy faddists. Chief among them was
Thomas Attwood, soon to become known as the first
member for Birmingham, and a currency bore of the first
magnitude. Attwood was no democrat, and would have
induced his union to aim at a 20 limit to the franchise,
had not the men of Newcastle and the north declared for
the 10 franchise. He valued the Reform Bill chiefly
because it gave Birmingham a voice in the nation's
councils, and because a little later it sent him to West-
minster as one of the two representatives of the Midland
capital. This was his long-sought opportunity for striv-
ing to re-establish the waning credit of the land, on the
basis of an unlimited supply of paper notes. 1 As the
men of Birmingham seemed inclined to follow Attwood
in his currency craze, while other towns straggled after
other local will-o'-the-wisps, some central body was
evidently needed to repress provincial fads and bring
reformers into line. Place and other Londoners accord-
ingly started (October, 1831) a central club, The National
Political Union, to give cohesion to the provincial bodies,
and unite the middle and labouring classes in common
1 On this scheme Place remarked, with unusual humour, that it was
understood by very few, and was condemned by all who did understand it.
Radicals and the Reform Bill of 1832. 47
political action. The history of this union was to prove
how difficult it is to bring- Britons into line, and how
impossible to keep them in line. The older reformers,
like Sir Thomas Burdett, member for Westminster,
speedily took offence at the demand of this union for a
"full, free, and effectual representation of the people in
the House of Commons", and for the abolition of all
"taxes upon knowledge".
But this programme, far from satisfying all Radicals,
far from uniting the middle and working classes in a
common aim, was disdainfully flung aside by men who
claimed to represent the feelings of the artisans and
operatives. As has been already noticed, the disappointed
followers of Owen had founded, in April, 1831, a National
Union of the Working-classes to prepare, by political
action, for that social regeneration which seemed ever to
be receding further into the hazy background of the seer's
visions. It was in vain that Owen discountenanced
political agitation such as his followers now essayed.
He had aroused hopes which he could not satisfy, a
spirit which he could not control. The ferment caused
by the Lords' rejection of the First Reform Bill (Oct.,
1831) now seemed to the more practical of his followers
to promise a speedy overthrow of the old system of
society, and with a fervour begotten of their communistic
beliefs they sought to drive on the National Political
Union to advanced democratic demands. These light
skirmishers of the Chartist vanguard had begun to dis-
seminate their views in a large hall called the Rotunda,
near the Surrey end of Blackfriars Bridge, whence they
were known first as the Rotundists, or Rotundanists,
according to the speaker's ideas of word-building. There
it was that the most important of the "points" of the
People's Charter were first popularized. The first sketch
of that famous programme, as a fighting creed, is ob-
servable in a circular or hand-bill inviting the working-
48 The Rise of Democracy.
men of London to a great meeting on Nov. 7, 1831, in
front of White Conduit House. After quoting as mottoes
the dicta " Labour is the source of wealth ", and "That
commonwealth is the best ordered where the citizens are
neither too rich nor too poor ", the circular proceeds to
a declaration of rights, which is partly inspired by the
Rights of Man of the French revolutionists of 1789:
" (i) All property, honestly acquired, is to be sacred and
inviolable. (2) All men are born equally free, and have
certain natural inherent and inalienable rights. (3) All
governments ought to be founded on those rights, and
all laws instituted for the common benefit, protection,
and security of all the people, and not for the particular
emolument or advantage of any single man, family, or
set of men. (4) All hereditary distinctions of birth are
unnatural, and are opposed to the Equal Rights of Man,
and therefore ought to be abolished. (5) Every man of
the age of 21 years, who is of sound mind and is not
tainted by crime, has a Right, either by himself or by his
representative, to a free voice in determining the necessity
of public contributions, their appropriation, amount, mode
of assessment, and duration. (6) In order to secure the
unbiassed choice of proper persons for representatives,
the mode of voting should be by ballot ; intellectual fit-
ness and moral worth, and not property, should be the
qualification for representatives; and the duration of
Parliaments should be but for one year."
It would be tedious to narrate all the disputes between
the National Union of the Working-classes and the
other union which claimed to combine the aims of the
middle and artisan classes in furthering the Whig Reform
Bill. Against Lord John Russell's Bill of 1831, and
against the slightly amended measure finally passed in
June, 1832, Benthamite Radicals and working-men
democrats alike protested, the latter declaring that no
bill would satisfy them which did not grant universal
Radicals and the Reform Bill of 1832. 49
suffrage, vote by ballot, annual Parliaments, and abo-
lition of the property qualification for members of Par-
liament. This programme received the adhesion of the
Radical clubs of Leeds, Huddersfield, Manchester, Bris-
tol and Brighton, though the men of Sussex showed
their good sense in substituting "short Parliaments"
for "Parliaments annually elected". 1
Sufficient proof has now been adduced as to the width
of the gulf separating working-men Radicals and the
Whigs in 1831-1832. Great, indeed, was the disgust of
the people when it was found that that child of many
hopes, the Act of 1832, still excluded from the franchise
those townsfolk who could not pay an annual rental of
10, and all save the wealthier leaseholders and copy-
holders in rural districts. The redistribution of seats
was equally unsatisfactory, Lord John Russell himself
subsequently admitting that it had been so manipulated
as to yield a permanent majority for the agricultural
interest.
Yet, however keen was the disgust of the more ardent
democrats with a measure which admitted to the fran-
chise less than half a million of men, that is, less than
one-fourth of the number enfranchised by the act of 1884,
the momentous character of the Act of 1832 was realized
by all keen-sighted observers. They saw that the victory
of the reformers upset that balance of power between the
three estates of the realm, which had been extolled by
Montesquieu as the peculiar virtue of the English con-
stitution. After two centuries of equipoise, the balance
was now tilted decidedly in favour of the people's House.
The majority of Commoners ceased to be nominees of
the aristocracy, and became representatives of the middle
1 It may be noted here that the demand for equal electoral districts was
formulated later, and soon disappeared from the Chartist programme ;
while that for the payment of members of Parliament originated in the
Birmingham Political Union, or rather, was revived by them from Cart-
wright's programme of 1780.
(M416) D
50 The Rise of Democracy.
classes; and when the representative system was ad-
mitted to form the basis of the House of Commons, it
was inevitable that further changes should follow the
course of the new industrial developments of our land.
Further than this, the means of effecting- such changes
had been discovered. The arcana of state-craft had been
divulged, never again to be concealed under the trappings
of an almost mediaeval past. The coercion applied by
the masses of the people to the wavering monarch had
induced him to warn the recalcitrant Lords that unless
they passed the bill, their opposition would be swamped
by a wholesale nomination of new peers. The sur-
render of the Upper House revealed the hitherto secret
machinery of our constitutional life, and proved how
irresistible was the pressure of the popular demand both
on the monarchy and the aristocracy. The prerogative
of the crown was thenceforth a lever which could be
wielded for the overthrow of aristocratic power ; and the
House which could set that force to work was naturally
supreme in the state. Since 1832 the efforts of democrats
have accordingly been directed, not against the monarch
or the Lords, but to the acquisition of completer control
over the House of Commons. This is a fact of the
utmost importance, as it marks off English Radicalism
from the cognate democratic movements on the Con-
tinent, which, unable to effect a lodgment in existing
institutions, have generally striven to overturn them.
They have been revolutionary: our Radicalism has in
the main been evolutionary.
It is a profound remark of the Roman historian, Tacitus,
that the obedience of a people may be gravely suspected
when they prefer to interpret rather than to follow the
commands of their rulers. What would he have said
to a state of things where the ruler has to interpret the
wishes of his people? Yet that has been the anomalous
position of the crown since 1832. The importance of
Radicals and the Reform Bill of 1832. 51
the change has been obscured partly by our innate
respect for constitutional forms, partly by the surprising-
adaptability of our rulers and our parties to new con-
ditions. Subsequently I shall have to dilate on these
features of our political life which tend to peace and
stability. Here I may merely note that the results of
the Reform Bill of 1832 were discounted by the personal
ascendency of Earl Grey, and of Lords Melbourne and
Palmerston, in the ranks of the reformers; so that not
until the death of the last, in 1865, did the full conse-
quences of the measure develop themselves. On the
other hand, the beaten Tory party, under the able lead
of Sir Robert Peel, began to reorganize itself with a view
to the new requirements of the age, and speedily emerged
from obscurity with renewed vigour and vitality. These
and other causes conspired to postpone the triumph of
Radical agitation for well-nigh forty years.
An assertion has therefore found favour that the Act
of 1832 was conservative rather than progressive, that
it closed an old epoch rather than inaugurated a new
one. Certainly, in the restoration of the franchise to
something like its old character, and in the averting of
civil war or revolution, the measure may in the best
sense be called conservative ; and if this elastic term may
also be used to denote a series of changes which have
ultimately led to the transfer of almost complete power
to the middle and working classes, then the same appel-
lation may be justified. But, on the other hand, the
reform struggle of 1831-1832 was to prove a stimulus
to democratic agitation by revealing the predominance
of the Commons over the other two estates of the realm,
and by showing how that power could be increased.
Lord Bacon remarks that a government is wise when it
handles things in such a way as to leave to the discon-
tented "some outlet of hope". That was the condition
of things in the early part of the Victorian era. Amidst
52 The Rise of Democracy.
all the distress of those years, the hope of gaining a
fuller control over the People's House was the pole-star
of the moral -force Chartists and their sympathizers,
guiding them in the channel of constitutional agitation,
and away from the rocks and shoals of forceful intrigue.
In its immediate effects, then, the great Reform Act
of 1832 may be called conservative; while its wider and
ultimate result was to further the progress of democracy
by characteristically English methods. It is the chief
glory of our race that, while stiff and unyielding as
individuals, it is in the mass surprisingly adaptable to
new political circumstances. In the majestic cycle of
growth from Alfred the Great to Victoria, no episode
illustrates more clearly than the struggle for reform our
deeply-rooted instinct to cling to the old and adapt it to
new conditions as they arise. It is this which has im-
parted to the English constitution its unique powers of
juvenescence, and has dowered the Victorian era with
its faculty of many-sided yet peaceful expansion.
Chapter III.
The Revolt against the New Poor-law.
With the general policy of the reformed Parliament
we have here no concern, not even for its noble
generosity in according ^"20,000,000 to colonial planters
as the price of their slaves' emancipation. Our task is
rather to trace the growth of popular feeling on questions
which the Whig ministry failed satisfactorily to solve,
and to watch the dissolution of the temporary and
artificial alliance between Whigs and Radicals which
carried the Act of 1832.
That measure installed the middle classes in power;
The Revolt against the New Poor-law. 53
and the artisan class waited to see how that power
would be used. A collision of interests soon became
inevitable amidst the problems produced by the indus-
trial changes of the time. The questions most closely
affecting the wage-earners were the organization of
trade-unions to resist frequent reductions of wages, and
the protection by legal recognition and control of the
co-operative societies which the more practical followers
of Robert Owen had endeavoured to conduct. On both
these topics the attitude of the Whig ministry was
disappointingly passive, if not actually hostile. Ministers
could not oppose the formation of numerous trade-
unions, seeing that in 1825 the old laws forbidding
their formation had been repealed. Still, they and their
supporters viewed with apprehension the organization of
the working-classes, which were deeply imbued with the
levelling theories of Owen and Hodgkin ; and when, after
nearly all industries had been organized, trade-unionism
began to spread among agricultural labourers, the
authorities took alarm. There were certainly some
grounds for apprehension. In and after the year 1829
many bands of peasants had marched from village to
village under the orders of an imaginary leader called
"Swing", burning ricks, smashing the hated machinery,
and threatening agriculture with ruin. After a temporary
abatement of this violence, it now seemed to be about to
revive in an organized form by the formation of a Grand
National Union, which urged agricultural labourers not
to work for less than ten shillings a week. As this
pittance was rarely obtained by the labourers of Dorset,
some earnest men of Tolpuddle, near Dorchester, formed
a "grand lodge" in their village, and ordered of the
village painter a figure of Death of heroic stature in
order duly to impress the future members. Scared by
this portent, the farmers set the law in motion, with the
result that the magistrates, and finally the judge, under
54 The Rise of Democracy.
an antiquated statute, convicted the leaders of enrolling
men by oath. For this offence, in spite of their admitted
good character, they were sentenced to seven years'
transportation (1834); and were only tardily rescued
from Botany Bay by the indignant protests of vast
meetings of their countrymen. Little more need be
said on the subject of trade-unionism here, except
that it was a powerful feeder of political discontent,
and was soon to show its power amidst the strikes of
1842.
The Whig- ministry was equally unfriendly to the
growth of the co-operative movement, believing, and
not unreasonably, that under the guise of co-operation
the Owenites were desirous of furthering their com-
munistic schemes. All that the more level-headed
followers of the New Lanark seer really desired was
legal protection for the new co-operative societies
against the designs of fraudulent officers, whose flight
with all the available cash brought many a store to
collapse and thousands of families to beggary. Up to
the year 1846 neither co-operative nor benefit societies
received any recognition at law, much less any super-
vision such as would diminish the risks of fraud. Not
till that year was any measure passed by Parliament
on the subject. The feeling of government towards
the early co-operators was one of suspicion and dislike,
which they repaid with interest.
In all probability, however, Radicals would have
found no general support, and the People's Charter
would never have been drawn up, but for the blaze of
discontent caused by the exorbitant stamp duty on
newspapers and by the severity of the new Poor-law of
1834. This law was passed at a time when the collapse
of the federated trade-unions and of many co-operative
societies revealed the impotence of the wage-earners for
sustained and well-organized action. Old questions and
The Revolt against the New Poor-law, 55
old agitators were passing- away. 1 The agitation for
factory reform, championed by Lord Ashley (afterwards
Lord Shaftesbury) and Mr. Fielden, member for Oldham,
had already brought industrial and social questions to
the fore; and now the drastic Poor-law of 1834 con-
centrated the attention of prince and peasant, rate-payer
and pauper, on the pressing problem of poor-relief. It
was a sign of the times when the veteran agitator Cob-
bett, and the foppish "Tory-Radical", Benjamin Disraeli,
joined hands to oppose the passing of the Whig measure
of 1834.
The evils of our older system of relief of the poor,
with which the reform ministry had to grapple, cer-
tainly called for energetic action. Some of them may
be traced back to the famous law of Queen Elizabeth,
which first strove to alleviate the distress caused by the
many social changes of the Tudor period. That measure
charged the authorities of each parish to maintain their
own destitute persons; but the merely parochial cha-
racter of the system early produced diversities in the
management which made it necessary to fence off the
poor of one parish from the poor of another parish.
Various Acts of Settlement were passed, which rendered
it increasingly difficult for a rural labourer to gain a
legal settlement in any but his native parish. Indeed
Adam Smith, the author of the immortal work The
Wealth of Nations (1776), satirically remarked that the
English peasant had to stay where he was born and
bred, lest he might perchance become a burden to the
poor-rates of some other parish. A few efforts were
made to remedy the harshness of the Law of Settle-
1 The rancorous diatribes of the older agitators, Hunt and Cobbett, against
all men in authority and against one another, were losing them their
earlier influence with the masses ; and Hunt received notice from his con-
stituents at Preston that they would not again require his services in Parlia-
ment. Hunt and Cobbett were both in the last year of their feverish
existence.
56 The Rise of Democracy.
ment; but they had little effect; and our villages re-
mained almost as isolated as in the middle ages.
Customs so cramping to the life of our rural poor
naturally subjected them to a terrible strain during times
of scarcity, such as those of the long war with France.
The system practically broke down; but the parochial
authorities, instead of demanding the abolition of the
Law of Settlement, so that their surplus poor might go
away freely to the new factory towns where work was
to be had, took the unwise step of doling out relief from
the rates in proportion to the price of bread and to the
number of children in the family relieved. This practice,
for which we are indebted to the sagacity of the magi-
strates of Speenhamland in Berkshire, was adopted by
hundreds of parishes which saw no other way out of
present difficulties. The natural results speedily fol-
lowed: habits of prudence, foresight, and self-restraint
were at a discount; and a labouring man, waxing fat
and flourishing according to the number of children
clustering thick about him, could repeat with gusto
the benediction of the Psalmist on the man who had
his quiver full of them. Rale-payers, however, were
increasingly inclined to doubt the applicability of the
blessing to an over-populated island, and gave willing
ear to the protests of the Rev. Dr. Malthus against
methods of poor-relief which threatened to deluge us
with a generation of bounty-bred and bounty-fed paupers.
Fortunately, the customs first adopted in 1796 did not
spread to most of the parishes of the north and the far
west a fact which probably accounts for the greater
independence of the working-classes in those parts ; but
even there the prospects of weekly doles from the parish
were beginning to lead to acts of intimidation with a
view to compelling magistrates to adopt the customs of
the south. In the southern and south-midland districts
nearly every rural parish had adopted the system, with
The Revolt against the New Poor-law. 57
the result that the village poorhouse was crowded with
demoralized creatures, who lived lavishly at the expense
of their more independent neighbours. Farmers often
turned off their labourers, and took them on at two-
thirds of their former wages, knowing that the parish
would make up the wages to the total amount required
by the price of corn and the size of the several families.
To rate-payers who could not adopt similar dodges the
system spelt ruin, unless they too went on the parish a
process adopted in one village of Buckinghamshire with
such gratifying success that every parishioner except
the parson became a pauper. The system was twice
cursed : it cursed those who paid rates by impoverishing
them ; it cursed those who received by debasing them.
The experience of practical men and the ideas of politi-
cal economists alike condemned these insensate customs.
Indeed, the activity in economic thought aroused by the
Essay on Population of the Rev. Dr. Malthus, may be
considered as largely resulting from the problem of
pauperism, which that amiable clergyman endeavoured
to explain and solve. All the circumstances of the time
favoured the supremacy of the principle of laisserfaire, or
non-interference with individual liberty, as the best safe-
guard of private and public prosperity. The economist
Ricardo emphasized the inexorable action of economic
law. The futility of state intervention was set forth in
many other writings; and no topic afforded so triumphant
an illustration of these arguments as the abuses of a
poor-law system which was pauperizing well-nigh half
the nation. Clever writers like the Rev. Sydney Smith
and Miss Martineau demonstrated the need for a com-
plete change, if not the abolition of the Poor-law. But
the Tory cabinets of 1815-1830 were paralysed by that
timidity which has beset every non-representative gov-
ernment of this century when confronted by wide-spread
misery or disaffection. With the Whig government of
58 The Rise of Democracy.
1832 the new political economy leaped to power, at
least as regards all questions which did not injure the
interests of the parliamentary majority, and it was there-
fore left to the Whig government of the middle classes
and doctrinaire philosophers to cleanse the Augean stable
of pauperism. A commission was appointed in 1833 to
report on the evils above-described; and the Poor-law
Amendment Act of 1834 embodied nearly all the recom-
mendations of the commission. Its chief provisions
may be thus summarized: (i) The government of the
United Kingdom for the first time gained definite and
almost complete control of the system of poor-relief,
thus reducing parochial customs of relief to comparative
uniformity and rendering impossible any intimidation by
village ruffians. (2) Instead of each parish managing its
own poorhouse, parishes were to be grouped together
in a larger district called a union, having one work-
house. Each union workhouse was to be controlled by
rate-payers, under supervision from a new governmental
body sitting in London, the Poor-law Board. 1 (3) The
system of doles from the rates in aid of wages was
entirely swept away, by out-door relief being prohibited
to all able-bodied persons. (4) The old Law of Settle-
ment was so far modified as to make it easy for a
labouring man to migrate in search of work. We may
note in passing that labour hereby gained a fluidity un-
known in England for fully two centuries. The new
railways were soon to aid in the transference of popula-
tion from congested villages to manufacturing districts,
to the great advantage of rural rate-payers, but to the
harm of factory artisans, whose wages were severely
depressed by the inflowing tide of unskilled labour.
The act passed the Commons almost unanimously,
only twenty members following Cobbett in his headlong
opposition ; and in the view of the rate-payers, the mea-
1 It now is merged in the Local Government Board.
The Revolt against the New Poor-law. 59
sure "saved the country". Many of its provisions were
indeed most salutory, restoring' to the English labourer
his earlier habits of thrift and independence ; while the
freer movement of labourers tended to break up the foul
nests of corruption into which our villages had often
degenerated.
And yet there was some reason in the opposition
which Cobbett, the young Disraeli, and the Times news-
paper alike offered to the measure. The support vigor-
ously accorded by the cantankerous Lord Brougham
sufficed to ensure its unpopularity, especially when he
asserted that the mere fact of a man's destitution proved
that Nature had no room for him "at her already over-
crowded table". Besides, the measure applied almost
indiscriminately the same remedy to urban and rural,
manufacturing and agricultural districts. It offered the
first prominent example of a wholesale application of
laisser-faire principles to destitute persons whose con-
ditions of life differed in nearly every respect. 1 More-
over, the transition was in most cases made with very
little previous notice, and certainly with none of the
needful preliminary training in thrift. People who for
more than a generation had grown accustomed for the
parish to "find them in everything", were suddenly told
that they must thenceforth shift for themselves, or go
into the new grim workhouses, there to be separated, to
don the paupers' garb, and subsist on bread of affliction
and water of affliction. The change, after the old
liberal rations of meat and beer, was certainly trying.
If it was true that under the old system new-comers at
the Reading workhouse had been upset by the high
living, was it not also true that in every workhouse after
1834, paupers were being worn to the bone by the hard
1 Still more extraordinary was the application (1838) of the new poor-law
to Ireland, where there had been no poor-law at all, and where out-door
relief was to be entirely prohibited I The law was extended to Scotland in
1845.
60 The Rise of Democracy.
work and meagre fare now administered to them?
There is abundant evidence (quite apart from Oliver
T-wfst^} that the change was so sudden and acute as to
provoke the wrath of the honest labouring poor. For-
tunately it occurred at a time when wheat was unusually
plentiful and cheap, the average price in the years
1834-36 being only 43^. the quarter. But when from 1837
years of scarcity followed one another in dreary succes-
sion, labourers began to rage against the authors of the
poor-law reform who had placed before them the cruel
alternative of complete independence or the workhouse.
The report of the select parliamentary committee,
which inquired into the working of the new law, in-
cludes several hostile petitions, those from Lancashire
being especially vigorous. The men of Salford and
Oldham protested in almost identical terms that, as the
poor had indisputable right to a maintenance in exchange
for their labour, they were filled with dismay at the in-
troduction of the new law; by which "men have been
forcibly and illegally separated from their wives, and
both of them from their children, and have been confined
in separate cells in large prisons called Union work-
houses, clad in prison dresses, and reduced by insufficient
coarse food to the confines of starvation ". Lancashire
had been free from the worst evils of the old system. It
was natural, then, that the County Palatine, together
with other populous districts of the north, should resent
the severities of the new poor-law; and that the bulk
of the "testimonials" in its favour should come from
the south midland and southern counties which it
rescued from impending financial ruin. At all events,
the evidence points clearly to the fact that, though the
1 Dickens possibly borrowed his story of Oliver Twist asking for " more"
from a caricaturing song of the period, which described how a boy on asking
for more soup was pitched by the master of the workhouse into the copper,
there to serve as " stock " for the enrichment of the liquid !
The Revolt against the New Poor-law. 61
new law was hailed with gratitude by the rate-payers of
the south, it moved the indignation of the workers in
our great industrial centres. If further evidence is
needed as to the hatred caused by the new law, it may
be found at Leicester, where, at the general election of
1841, the cry was raised " Let us end the power of the
Whigs. Vote for the Tories in preference to the Whigs,
the authors of the accursed Poor-law ".
There was some reason in these feelings of resent-
ment. Artisans felt that the Whig government had
cheated their sturdiest supporters, the men whose en-
thusiasm in the cause of parliamentary reform had
broken down the close ring of the borough-mongers : it
was their voices which had swelled the cry of "The
bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill": it was
their persistent toil which had given to that movement
its irresistible momentum, and had placed the Whigs
securely in power. And what had been their reward?
The first great measure of domestic concern had been
this Poor-law Act, which cut down the rates, but by
means of poor-law Bastilles and a diet of skilly for the
destitute. To the suspicious imaginations of working-
men the Municipal Reform Act of 1835 appeared to be
merely another middle-class measure; for had not the
reformed House of Commons accepted with little modi-
fication the Lords' amendment, and thereby excluded
from the elective town-councils all councillors who did
not possess a certain amount of real or personal pro-
perty?
As the legislation of 1833-1837 was wholly in favour
of the newly enfranchised middle-classes, would not a
genuinely democratic Parliament right the wrongs of
the artisans and rural labourers? This was the feeling
fermenting in myriads of brains. These were the events
which broke up the alliance between Whigs and Radi-
cals, and the schism tended, at least on all industrial
6a The Rise of Democracy.
questions, to ally Whigs and Tories in a solid phalanx
against change; while very many of the working-men,
when left without any cultured leaders, fell under the
influence of men who advocated physical force.
If, as will be shown in the next chapter, "moral-
force " Chartism was largely the outcome of the agita-
tion for a free press, "physical-force" Chartism gained
its strength from the popular hatred against the new
poor-law Bastilles, a hatred fanned almost into a
flame of revolt by the rabid rhetoric of Stephens and
Oastler in the north.
Chapter IV.
The Fight for a Free Press.
Before proceeding to a description of the Chartist
movement, it may be well to diverge from the beaten
track of politics to describe a struggle which has had
an incalculable influence on modern life. In these days
of cheap daily newspapers it seems scarcely credible
that up to 1836 the average price of an English journal
was sevenpence, and that frugal and law-abiding folk
rarely indulged in that costly luxury except on Saturday
or Sunday. The high price of papers was caused partly,
of course, by the comparatively small numbers who in
any one district were able to take an intelligent interest
in public affairs. The iron horse had not as yet acceler-
ated the distribution of newspapers. The citizen of
Leicester or Oxford never dreamt then of a day when
the London daily paper should be on his breakfast-table.
The day of the engineer had not yet fully dawned. The
hand of the man of law was still heavy on the land, and
the popular intelligence slumbered under the pressure
The Fight for a Free Press. 63
of laws which seemed designed to postpone the awaken-
ing to a distant future. The miserable sum of ^20,000
was in and after 1833 annually doled out by govern-
ment in aid of the education which some noble men and
women were endeavouring to extend to their benighted
countrymen; and this sum was less than a fiftieth part
of what our administrators then raised by the "taxes
on knowledge".
These odious taxes included the stamp duty of four-
pence on every copy of a newspaper, the duty of three-
pence on every pound of paper, and a heavy impost on
advertisements. It would be difficult to say whether
these taxes were imposed with the aim of helping the
revenue, or, as was claimed by Dr. Birkbeck in 1835,
to check the growth of popular intelligence. A good
case could be made out for either supposition. On the
one hand, it might fairly be urged that these, or similar
taxes, were rendered necessary by the refusal of the
House of Commons in 1815 to impose any longer on the
propertied classes the crushing impost of two shillings
in the pound on income, which they had gallantly borne
for the last nine years of the war. Hence the govern-
ment was forced to recur to the system of placing heavy
duties on multifarious articles, until the Rev. Sydney
Smith could say, with equal wit and truth, that every
article was taxed, from the top of the schoolboy to the
medicine which ended the old man's days and the marble
which recorded his virtues. It was only natural, then,
that the newspaper press should speedily be subjected
to a stamp duty of fourpence per copy, and that paper
and advertisements should also be taxed.
Undoubtedly, however, the growth of ribald and
seditious pamphlets amidst the distress and discontent
of 1815 strengthened the determination of the govern-
ment to impose these heavy taxes on knowledge. But,
so far from repressing sedition, the increased newspaper
64 The Rise of Democracy.
tax proved to be its best feeder. The poor or econo-
mical, being unable to afford the ninepenny Times,
Morning Chronicle, or Herald, betook themselves to
cheap publications like those of Cobbett, which, under
the guise of a weekly letter, evaded the duty; and the
success of his Twopenny Register raised up a number of
unstamped papers which indulged in the most violent
and scurrilous abuse of the Regent, the Castlereagh
ministry, the church, and all the institutions of the land.
In order to suppress these seditious and abusive prints,
Castlereagh introduced and passed an act for the purpose
of stopping their production and sale, with the natural
result that the severe penalties imposed exasperated the
democrats and increased the number of their pamphlets
and prints.
The tax on paper was equally serious, for it rendered
difficult, if not impossible, the publication of cheap
literature. An example of this is seen in the praise-
worthy attempt made by Mr. Charles Knight to spread
enlightenment by his Penny Encyclopaedia. The com-
pletion of this truly great and noble work entailed on
him a total loss of ^32,000, and of this deficit ^30,000
was caused by the heavy duty on paper. In one of her
tales illustrative of political economy, Miss Martineau
stated that there were in the United Kingdom nearly
800 paper-mills, producing paper which was valued at
;i, 500,000; and the paper-duty amounted to as much
as ^770,000, or far more than the wages of the 25,000
workmen employed. The means taken by government
to prevent any evasion of this tax may be illustrated by
an incident which befell William Lovett, whose career
will presently be described. After the visit of an old
farmer-like gentleman to the co-operative association of
which Lovett was secretary, there came a writ from
Somerset House charging him with defrauding the
revenue. After long search and laborious inquiry at the
The Fight for a Free Press. 65
official "circumlocution office", the offence was found
to consist in the co-operative quarterly report, which
contained one quarter of a printer's sheet of paper on
which the duty of one shilling- had not been paid a fact
noticed by the government spy, who had come in the
guise of a friend from the country desirous of spreading-
the blessings of co-operation in his native village.
When books and pamphlets were subjected to this
vexatious impost, and newspapers were rendered a
costly luxury, it was natural that all friends of the people
should combine in an effort to sweep away all these
obnoxious "taxes on knowledge". The benevolent Dr.
Birkbeck, whose Institution had lately commenced its
grand work of educating the youth of the metropolis,
and Mr. Chadwick, the pioneer in so many social re-
forms, were the first to initiate a public agitation on the
subject, in a meeting held at the City of London Scientific
and Literary Institution, in April, 1830. The excite-
ment aroused by the revolutions on the Continent and
the reform struggle in our own land gave a further
impulse to the growth of an "unstamped" press, by
which working-men leaders determined, in defiance of
the law, to diffuse political information among their own
class at a popular price. In this determination lay the
germ of the cheap newspaper press of to-day, with its
multifarious powers.
At the outset of the struggle, the champions of popular
intelligence had no doubts whatever as to the wholly
beneficent influence of their new creation. Witness
this poem of Ebenezer Elliott, the "Corn Law Rhymer"
of Sheffield, in which, after singing of the creation of
light, he concludes :
"And shall the mortal sons of God
Be senseless as the trodden clod
And darker than the tomb?
No, by the mind of man,
(M416) E
66 The Rise of Democracy.
By the swart artisan,
By God, our Sire 1
Our souls have holy light within,
And every form of grief and sin
Shall see and feel its fire."
"'The Press', all lands shall sing
The Press, the Press we bring
All lands to bless.
Oh, pallid want, oh, labour stark,
Behold, we bring the second ark !
The Press! The Press! The Press!"
The new faith was speedily to find its champions and
martyrs. To the working-men who were to form the
backbone of moral-force Chartism, political enfranchise-
ment never seemed an end in itself, but rather a means
of gaining opportunities of social, mental, and moral
improvement. This was the motive force which im-
pelled men like William Lovett, Henry Vincent, and
Hetherington through their varied toils and imprison-
ments. A brief sketch of these men may not be out of
place here ; for by them and others of their class move-
ments were initiated which were later on to be patronized,
and finally adopted, by responsible statesmen.
William Lovett, the future compiler of the People's
Charter, was born in 1800 at the fishing village of
Newlyn, in Cornwall, shortly after the death of his father
at sea. His boyhood, passed amidst the delights of the
sea-shore, the privations caused by the war, and the
alarms excited by the press-gang, naturally aroused in
his gifted and sensitive being a love of nature and
indignation at the wrongs inflicted by man. Necessity
soon drove the lad to London, where he arrived with
little money and no friend. In his lodgings in South-
wark he was alike surprised and disgusted at the filth of
the tenements and the rowdy behaviour of the inhabi-
The Fight for a Free Press. 67
tants. Blackened eyes were especially common on the
Monday as a result of the previous days' " sprees", and
prize fights not infrequently went on in the streets almost
unchecked by the feeble and ill-organized watchmen.
Though for a time almost on the verge of starvation,
Lovett, by industry and (thrift, ultimately raised himself
above these degraded surroundings, being helped in his
struggles by attendance at the classes of Dr. Birkbeck's
Institute. The success of his teachers in imparting
technical knowledge, and in awakening the mental and
moral faculties, was in Lovett's case so complete that
he often dined on bread and cheese that he might add
to his scanty store of books. 1 His eager desire for the
improvement of his fellows led him to start the move-
ment for opening museums on Sundays, with a petition
which set forth the growth of intemperance consequent
on the want of rational recreation.
But Lovett's work was to be mainly political. Along
with very many self-educated men of those days, he came
under the spell of Robert Owen's ideas for the renovation
of society, which have been previously described; but
the young Cornishman, with all the imaginative qualities
of his race, had a keen regard for practical results, to
which Owen's schemes could with the utmost difficulty
be adapted. When, therefore, the seer was laying down
the laws for his new society at New Harmony in the
United States, Lovett and some other half-convinced
Owenites started co-operative stores, in order to bring
the system into touch with the workaday world. He
became the secretary of the central co-operative society,
J The foundation by Mr. Brougham of " The Society for the Diffusion of
Useful Knowledge" in 1825, was beginning to place good books and maga-
zines within the reach of many an artisan who previously had had only
Cobbett's Register or the frequently ribald productions of the " unstamped"
press. To counteract these vicious influences the new society issued the
Penny Magazine, which as was asserted by the then Lord Brougham in
1834 speedily extinguished the worst of those publications.
68 The Rise of Democracy.
called "The British Association for Promoting Co-opera-
tive Knowledge"; and not even the failure of this and
many other co-operative societies quenched his belief in
the future success of this principle, which was to be
realized ten years later by the Rochdale Pioneers. De-
spite the collapse of this association, Lovett, with un-
daunted energy, organized, in April, 1831, the National
Union of the Working-classes, which vainly strove to
carry a truly democratic reform. On the decline of this
association, Hetherington and he founded the London
Working-men's Association (1836), with the aim of im-
proving the moral and mental position of their fellows,
and of gaining further political rights. The repeal of
the crushing tax on newspapers occupied their energies
at the outset; and no part of Lovett's life was more
fruitful in results than the efforts which he and his
associates made for popularizing knowledge and political
instruction.
Throughout the turmoil of strifes which besmirched
many a reputation, Lovett's character and career stood
forth firm, manly, and consistent. Nature had not
bestowed on him physical force sufficient to stand the
strain of an active mind and a nervous temperament
when placed amidst sordid and chafing surroundings.
But though "soured by the perplexities of life", and
weighted by a delicate frame, he never hesitated to
stand forth in defence of his principles, defying alike
tyrants and demagogues. In 1831 he allowed his
furniture to be seized and sold rather than serve in
the militia, for which he had been drawn. Eight years
later, with equal staunchness he signed a Chartist pro-
test, knowing well that it would lodge him in Warwick
jail. As a rule his speeches were distinguished for
reasonableness and manly independence; but, when
excited by any act of injustice, his usually mild intel-
lectual features were lit up by the fierce fires that burnt
The Fight for a Free Press. 69
within, and his speech rang- with indignation. And yet
he never became a firebrand; for, realizing from his
early teacher Owen the futility of mere brute force and
the more lasting effects of moral suasion, he always
sought to convince rather than to coerce; and, risking
the loss ot popularity, he never shrank from exposing
the folly of those physical -force Chartists who were
swayed by the gusts of popular applause and passion.
If in addition to his many estimable qualities nature had
bestowed on him that force of character which dominates
men and affairs, the Chartist movement might have
gained a speedier and completer success than it was to
achieve. As it is, he left behind him the record of a
long life unceasingly devoted to the moral and political
advancement of his class, and far more influential than
that of many of the so-called statesmen of his time.
Henry Vincent was another proof of the justice of
Kingsley's remark that the Chartist movement called
forth the energies of all our best working-men. The
future famous lecturer was born in High Holborn in
1813; but his father soon removed to Hull, where the
boy was apprenticed to a printer. The political excite-
ments of 1830 first drew the lad into the whirl of public
affairs; and after the return of the family to London
young Vincent's oratorical powers gained him increasing
popularity with the Radicals who were wont to gather
to applaud their favourite speakers in Clerkenwell Green.
Like other young democrats of those days, he joined
in the work of circulating the cheap unstamped news-
papers; and extending his work to the provinces, he
became a contributor, and later, an editor, of the un-
stamped Western Vindicator, published at Bath. Vin-
cent's florid writing and his passionate rhetoric were
well suited to the ardent west -country temperament.
His mobile features, the magic of his voice, and his
impassioned perorations, produced an extraordinary
70 The Rise of Democracy.
effect, perhaps unequalled since the time when Whit-
field's thrilling- appeals drew tears to the grimy cheeks
of the Gloucestershire miners. Political passion, a
century later, now made Vincent's oratory a danger
among the excitable miners of Monmouthshire, who,
as we shall presently see, marched in thousands to
rescue him from the jail at Newport where the fears of
the propertied classes had immured him. Vincent's
charm of manner and his claim for the complete political
equality of the sexes gained him unique popularity with
the women of the west, as was seen in a great demon-
stration in his honour given by them at Hartshill Gar-
dens, Bath, from which every other man was excluded.
Apart from its ludicrous aspects, this event is noteworthy
as marking the progress of the Women's Rights move-
ment, of which John Stuart Mill was the intellectual
champion, and as tending to range the early female
emancipators shoulder to shoulder with the champions
of the unstamped press and of the Charter. Of Henry
Vincent's career subsequent to his imprisonment we
need say little more. The editing of his newspaper,
platform speaking, election contests, and lectures on
historical and moral subjects filled up an energetic and
useful life. Long before its close, in 1878, he had the
gratification of seeing the last of the ' ' taxes on know-
ledge " repealed, while most of his political aims had
also been realized. Indeed, few men have exercised a
more stimulating influence than Vincent on the middle
and working classes of his time, first by his political
orations, and later by his lectures. Popular lecturing
on moral and historical subjects was hardly known
until Vincent revealed its potentialities. His power
both as a speaker and lecturer lay not in argument, in
which he was admittedly very deficient, but rather in
the glow of fancy and exuberance of language in which
he suffused his subject, and in the dramatic peroration,
The Fight for a Free Press. 71
which, as I have been assured by one of his numerous
admirers, frequently brought a whole audience to its
feet. 1
For the more virile advocacy of a free press we must
turn to Henry Hetherington and John Cleave. The
former was born in London in 1792, and was brought
up to the printing trade. After the war period, becom-
ing imbued with Robert Owen's doctrines, he threw all
his energies into the cause of co-operation and demo-
cratic reform. Though endowed with less organizing
and tactical skill than Lovett, and less rhetorical power
than Vincent, Hetherington was a man of greater re-
source, reasoning ability, and will power. In order to
effect the equalization of wealth, he determined to defy
Castlereagh's press law and issue unstamped weekly
Penny Papers for the People (Oct. 1830), changing the
title at the end of the year to " The Poor Man's
Guardian, established contrary to law to try the power
of right against might ". At the corner where the
government stamp should have come, appeared the
motto " Knowledge is Power", around a printing-press.
In its little space of four pages this prototype of the
cheap press in England included scanty scraps of news,
two or three advertisements of Radical or freethought
pamphlets, and a long article filled with violent abuse
of the Whig and Tory factions. Throughout the reform
struggle, Hetherington declaimed against the "apostasy
and villainy of the Whigs ", and against Parliament,
which he dubbed the "Westminster tax-trap". Mon-
archy was "an expensive farce which ought at once to
be closed"; the standing army of "man-butchers"
ought speedily to be disbanded, and the sponge be
applied to the debt "called national". One short and
bloody struggle would gain all these boons and end
the inequalities of wealth. As respectable booksellers
1 See also Solly's These Eighty Years, vol. i. chap. 12,
72 The Rise of Democracy.
shrank from the risk of vending this illegal print,
Hetherington gathered a band of volunteers to sell it
in the streets or hawk it from house to house. He and
his news-agents were speedily subjected to prosecutions
and persecutions not unlike those which Marat had had
to endure from the Parisian police. Many were the
expedients adopted to evade the law. Large parcels of
waste paper labelled Poor Man's Guardian, were often
despatched from Hetherington's front door, and were
valiantly defended by the bearers against the police,
while the copies of the paper were being smuggled out
by a back door or over the roofs. Cleave adopted the
device of sham funerals from neighbours' houses, the
coffins being filled with his Police Gazettes. A "victim
fund" was started to pay the fines of printers or salesmen
who were convicted, and to lessen the hardships of the
five hundred or more persons who suffered imprisonment
for their devotion to the cause. Hetherington saw his
business melt away under the hostility of wealthier
neighbours, who probably were alarmed by the political
programme universal suffrage, vote by ballot, short
Parliaments, and no property qualification for mem-
bers which he unceasingly advocated. Filled with as
fanatical a zeal as the French revolutionists, whom he
ever held up to admiration, Hetherington extended his
operations into the provinces, his journal gaining a large
sale in Lancashire. Three terms of imprisonment failed
to shake the firmness of his purpose, or to injure the
sale of his paper. In fact, he started similar weekly
papers, the Republican and the Destructive, which were
still more revolutionary in their aims ; and when, owing
to various causes, the sale of his first paper declined, he
met the popular demand for more general news and less
diatribe by starting his Twopenny Despatch. Meanwhile
others had followed his example. John Cleave, a prin-
ter, who retained the bluff bearing and love of liberty of
The Fight for a Free Press. 73
his early seafaring- days, brought out his celebrated Police
Gazette, which soon attained an immense circulation, and
conducted its editor twice to prison. Carlisle's Gaunt-
let, another Radical and freethought journal, enjoyed a
weekly sale of 22,000 copies, or more than four times
that of Robert Owen's Crisis, which was losing ground.
Watson, the editor of The Working Man's Friend, and
Mr. William Carpenter, editor of The Political Magazine,
also felt the weight of the government's displeasure.
Besides these well-known weekly unstamped papers, a
swarm of disreputable prints some 150 in all, says
Francis Place bore witness to the depth of popular
ignorance and of hatred against the government.
But despite all the violence of the unstamped press,
public opinion set steadily in favour of the law-breakers,
even before the law was stultified by the declaration of
a jury that the Poor Man's Guardian was not an illegal
production. This verdict was largely due to the signal
ability with which Hetherington turned the tables on
his prosecutors, convicting them of gross injustice in
persecuting him while they allowed expensive journals
like the Lancet, Literary Gazette, Athenceum, and Legal
Observer to go scot-free. After the verdict of the jury on
June 17, 1834, the fourpenny stamp duty was doomed.
Eminent men like George Grote, the historian, and
even one of the Rothschilds, signed a requisition for a
public meeting, to be held at the Guildhall, advocating
the complete abolition of the taxes on knowledge; and
though The Times and The Morning Chronicle discoun-
tenanced the agitation, yet they were speedily silenced
by the establishment of an unstamped threepenny daily
paper, and secretly urged the Whig ministry to lower
the duty to one penny, a figure at which few editors
would be likely to brave the risks of prosecution. Un-
fortunately, their influence prevailed over the almost
unanimous voice of public opinion; and though the
74 The Rise of Democracy.
chancellor of the exchequer, Mr. Spring Rice, in 1835-36
had a surplus of a million sterling in the nation's budget,
yet he clung to the penny duty, claiming that as the
nation carried stamped newspapers free of postage, it
must make some equivalent charge, and that it would be
very hard on country readers to make them pay postage
on their papers! The grotesqueness of this excuse is
only equalled by its insincerity in days when government,
with unruffled equanimity, charged eightpence on a letter
from London to Brighton. It was in vain that deputa-
tions and petitions poured in to plead for a penny postage
for newspapers in place of the detested stamp duty ; and
there was a general outburst of indignation when it was
known that the reduction of the duty to one penny would
be accompanied by stringent regulations, aiming at the
complete extinction of the unstamped press and pam-
phlets.
At once the democrats were up in arms, the artisans
being especially inflamed against the proposals. For
some weeks past an American gentleman, Dr. Black,
had been organizing a class of London working-men for
correspondence respecting a free press, and now in the
midst of the agitation this class widened into the " Lon-
don Working Men's Association to procure a Cheap and
Honest Press". It was known and even admitted by the
government that a penny duty and the proposed regula-
tions would raise the price of a lawful journal to fourpence,
which was far beyond the means of working-men. Their
friends in the House of Commons, including Sir W.
Molesworth, and Messrs. Grote, Bulwer Lytton, Hume,
and others, made a spirited effort to gain its complete
abolition. It was in vain. Mr. Spring Rice, deeply
impressed by the fears of the propertied classes, and by
the interests of their journals, spent most of his ability
in proving the impossibility of carrying on the fourpenny
stamp duty, and in demonstrating the improvement
The Fight for a Free Press. 75
effected in the morals of the unstamped papers as they
increased their circulation. The argument proved too
much and too little. It failed to calm the fears of the
Tories, or to win them from their adhesion to the rival
cause of cheap soap; and its timorous inconsequence
further widened the schism between Whigs and demo-
crats.
The same half-hearted policy was pursued with regard
to the paper-tax, which was reduced to three halfpence
per pound. Both changes chiefly benefited the publica-
tions read by the middle classes. The Times, Morning
Chronicle, Standard, &c., reduced their price tofivepence,
while the weekly Spectator came down to ninepence. The
small cheap newspapers were of course handicapped by
the new severe regulations, and by the new duty, which
pressed with far greater weight on a small print than on
the large and influential newspapers.
For various reasons the free press agitation declined
after 1836. Public attention was distracted by the ac-
cession of a young and beloved sovereign, by the general
enforcement of the new Poor-law, and by other stirring
events of the time. But, as will shortly appear, the free-
press movement, though making little headway until
after 1850, had an important effect on the first develop-
ment of Chartism.
The second agitation for the complete repeal of all
taxes on knowledge will be noticed more fully in the bio-
graphy of John Bright, which forms part of this series.
It may, however, be noted here that the essentially
working-man's movement of 183036 was in 1850-60
taken up by the middle -class leaders, Messrs. Bright,
Cobden, Villiers, Milner Gibson, and Baines. A Press
Association was also started, the proprietors and editors
of the more expensive journals having seen the folly of
their opposition to the abolition of the duty in 1836. The
contention for a complete repeal of the duties on news-
76 The Rise of Democracy.
papers, paper, and advertisements was, in fact, an ex-
tension of the free-trade policy commenced by Peel in
1842, which substituted a tax on property for the vexa-
tious imposts on raw materials and articles of common
use.
The repeal of the taxes on knowledge was a fore-
gone conclusion when the beneficial results of the re-
duction of the newspaper tax were seen in the doubling
of the circulation of newspapers within eight years. The
improvement in the tone of the press was equally marked,
affording gratifying proof of the advance in popular in-
telligence, which rejected the ribald and seditious trash
of the early unstamped prints. Those illegal journals
had, however, done a great work in compelling the Whig
ministry to advance with the times. Out of the lawless
prints there was gradually evolved that marvel of these
latter days, a cheap press, which may fitly be called the
fourth estate of the realm. If it be true, as surely it
is, that democracy can only be successfully worked by
well-informed citizens, then no steps can be regarded
with more satisfaction than those which have placed
the knowledge of public affairs within the reach of the
poorest. It was the boast of Pericles that in Athens
even the busy man took a lively interest in all the con-
cerns of the city. But the cheap newspaper now puts it
in the power of the artisan to follow the events of the
day, not only of his own town, but of his country, and
of the world at large. What a prospect of mental and
civic development is thus opened up, when once the
mind of the populace shall be raised above the level of
the sordid details which now too often hold it enthralled!
Crown, Parliament, and People. 77
Chapter V.
Crown, Parliament, and People (1837).
The popular impression as to the Chartist movement
would seem to be that it was a sudden and almost
causeless outburst of Radical fanaticism; but a study
of those years reveals its intimate connection with the
movements championed by Major Cartwright, Cobbett,
Hunt, Lovett, and Hetherington, and also with the
popular indignation aroused by the harsh Whig Poor-
law of 1834 and the press regulations of 1836. The
concurrent effect of these various causes was to be fully
felt in the first years of the present reign, when the new
poor-law Bastilles were ready to receive their Oliver
Twists, and when even the industrious poor were often
forced into them by the dearth of corn and stagnation
of trade. Keen-sighted observers had foretold that the
new Poor-law would necessitate the repeal of the Corn-
laws, and many were the congratulations to the Whig
ministry on the bounteous harvests of 1834-1836, which
in those years assuaged the hardships consequent on the
withdrawal of the weekly dole in aid of wages.
But Fortune, after showering her favours on us, with-
drew them as suddenly in the first years of Queen
Victoria's reign, and thus revealed the close connection
then subsisting between a good harvest and the pros-
perity of all branches of our manufacturing industry.
When bread was dear, so large a share of the income
of artisan and shopkeeper went to the landlord, the
farmer, and the baker that other trades languished from
the decline in the purchasing power of the community.
Hence arose those complaints of over-production, which,
as Carlyle remarked in his Chartism, were inherently
absurd when myriad bare backs shivered for lack of
78 The Rise of Democracy.
sufficient clothing. Another serious symptom appeared
in our social life. At the time when Lancashire and
Yorkshire bemoaned the lack of purchasers for their
goods, the new facilities for migration offered by the
new Poor-law began to burden them with the surplus
pauper population, which, unable any longer to loaf out
its existence in the parishes of the southern and south-
midland counties, tramped towards the fabled wealth of
the factory towns. The result may readily be imagined.
Our manufacturing districts were crowded with miser-
able creatures, whose eagerness to take any work at any
pay depressed the condition of the regular operatives,
and foredoomed strikes to almost certain failure. The
position of the new-comers was miserable in the extreme.
An observer describes them as generally huddled to-
gether in filthy cellars, helpless to make a new start
in life, and as strange to the wealthy manufacturers as
were the aborigines of Australia. 1 Thus the coinci-
dence of a series of bad harvests with the completion of
the new harsh arrangements of the Poor-law gave the
last turn to the thumb-screw of misery, and brought
England to the verge of a social revolution. Lord
Bacon pithily remarks : "If poverty and broken estate
in the better sort be joined with want and necessity in
the mean people, the danger is imminent and great.
For the rebellions of the belly are the worst." That
was the state of Great Britain in the first five years of
the Victorian era.
And yet, even when beset by extraordinary difficulties
at home as well as in India and Canada, our beloved
land, so far from succumbing, was about to enter on the
most remarkable and glorious period of expansion and
growth which any European country has ever experi-
1 Dr. Cooke Taylor's Tour in Lancashire, which states that out of 17,000
destitute persons recently relieved at a refuge in Manchester, only 3500
were natives of the county.
Crown, Parliament, and People. 79
enced. It may not, perhaps, be over-fanciful to trace
the action of a compensating- principle in our affairs,
securing 1 us from continental wars when our domestic
affairs threatened a crisis, and breathing- new life into
our institutions shortly before their subjection to an
unwonted strain. The life of Parliament had been reno-
vated by the enfranchisement of the middle classes, so
that the terrible social and industrial problems of the
new age were confronted, not by a close oligarchy, but
by a House of Commons representing the new energy
and wealth of the nation. Our old parliamentary system
had corrected many of its worst defects, thereby falsi-
fying the confident prophecies of democrats, that nothing
could be expected from a Parliament of borough-mongers.
Events, therefore, presaged evolution rather than a revo-
lution like that of France in the preceding century. In
that unhappy land, after the overthrow of the crumbling
walls of privilege, there was neither solidity in her insti-
tutions nor solidarity in her classes sufficient to stem the
inrushing tide of democratic innovation ; and power
speedily fell into the hands of enthusiasts, who involved
their country in wars that ultimately led her back to
despotism.
Ours was a happier lot. Peace, retrenchment, and
reform strengthened our institutions when threatened
by dangers as great as those of France in 1789; and
when industrial and social problems bulked threateningly
on the horizon, a new radiance was shed on the nation's
life by the accession of a young and beloved princess.
The happy results of the decease of George IV. have
already been noticed; and his brother, after outliving
his earlier popularity, now conferred a similar benefit
on mankind by an equally timely departure. The nation
hailed with joy the accession of the young Queen Vic-
toria, whose training at Kensington Palace by the
fondest and wisest of mothers had seemed to devote her
8o The Rise of Democracy.
to a life healthier and purer than that of the court at
Windsor under her uncle's regime. The curious had
long remarked the simple natural life led by the young
princess, and opined that her reign might perhaps be
as prosperous and glorious as those of the last three
English queens who had reigned in their own right over
a loyal and devoted people. All the auguries seemed
favourable when the young queen "tears in her eyes,
but quite collected" hastily robed herself in the early
morning of June 20, 1837, to accept the allegiance of
the archbishop and the lord chancellor. Sentiment deep-
ened into admiration when, in her speech read at the
opening of the new Parliament, she declared that she
placed unreservedly at its disposal the moneys of the
Civil List a step which the late king had taken only
grudgingly and with reservations. Parliament ultimately
fixed the Civil List at ^385,000, withdrawing from
royal control some considerable items. 1 The new accord
between crown and Parliament was seen when the claim
of the trusty watch-dog Hume for a further reduction in
the Civil List was supported by only nineteen members.
Two years later, amidst the tumults of the autumn of
1839, a welcome proof of the people's loyalty was seen
in the universal acclaim which greeted the news of the
queen's approaching marriage with Prince Albert.
These details have a more than personal interest.
They distinguish the Radical and Chartist movement
from the republicanism which then characterized con-
tinental democracy. Frenchmen who strove for a pure
and economical administration regarded the sordid rule
of Louis Philippe with increasing aversion; every en-
lightened Prussian chafed under the patriarchal sway
of Frederick William IV.; and few Italians who longed
1 The assumption by Parliament of larger controlling powers over the
crown estates, and the fixing of the Civil List, have resulted in a considerable
gain to the nation's finance.
Crown, Parliament, and People. 81
for the liberty of their peninsula could regard the Pope
or the Bourbons of Naples with the feelings cherished
by Englishmen towards Queen Victoria. Radicals might
complain of the etiquette which prevented them peti-
tioning the queen, unless they presented themselves in
all the glory of court dress at her majesty's levde; but,
though indulging in the Englishman's cherished privi-
lege, a far-resounding grumble, they knew full well that
the queen's heart beat in sympathy with the people's
cares and aspirations. Every cottager admired the
womanly fondness which refused to part with the ladies
of the bed-chamber in obedience to the dictates of a sup-
posed parliamentary tradition; and the marriage of the
queen in Feb., 1840, entwined still closer those bonds
of affection between crown and people which had been
all but ruptured in the reign of George IV. The fierce
republicanism of that generation gradually faded away
before the simpler, nobler, and more sympathetic influ-
ences which shone from her of whom Tennyson has
sung
" A thousand claims to reverence closed
In her as mother, wife, and queen ".
But while the crown was regaining its hold on the
people's affections, the Whig ministry was feeling the
brunt of the unpopularity which is the guerdon of power
in times of distress. The general election of August,
1837, left the Whigs with a slender majority over their
newly-styled Conservative opponents, ably led by Sir
Robert Peel. The leader of the Whig ministry, Lord
Melbourne, was not a tower of strength to his anxious
following. Indeed, apart from his chivalrous interest
in the political training of the young queen, he seemed
to find political life a sheer weariness. In receiving
a deputation, his chief desire appeared to be to pose
gracefully as a modern Gallic, heedless of the important
(M416) V
8a The Rise of Democracy.
issues brought before him ; and his colleagues failed to
remove the impression that the ministry either would
not, or could not, assuage the deepening distress of the
country. Lord Glenelg's conduct towards the Canadian
malcontents inspired no confidence on either side of the
Atlantic; Mr Spring Rice failed for five years to present
a clean balance-sheet, and the fate of the ministry de-
pended on the energy of one sprightly personality, Lord
John Russell. "If (wrote Sydney Smith) the amiable
Lord Glenelg were to leave us, we should feel secure in
our colonial possessions ; if Mr. Spring Rice were to go
into holy orders, great would be the joy of the three per
cents. A decent, good-looking head of the government
might easily be found in lieu of Viscount Melbourne.
But in five minutes after the departure of Lord John
Russell, the whole Whig government would be dissolved
into sparks of Liberality and splinters of Reform." And
yet the one clever man of the ministry never enjoyed any
general popularity. The scion of the ducal house of
Bedford seemed to hold aloof from the rank and file of
his followers, either from aristocratic reserve, or from a
certain "lofty shyness" of character to use a phrase
felicitously applied by Lord Rosebery to the younger
Pitt. Both Pitt and Russell, on throwing off the cares
of office, became the most charming of talkers when
amidst congenial society. But their frigid demeanour in
the House often cooled their friends and heated their
opponents, giving to their refusals, their rebukes, or
their sarcasms an asperity which probably was never
intended. Lord John Russell's facility in giving offence
is thus happily hit off by Lord Lytton :
" Next, cool, and all unconscious of reproach,
Comes the calm 'Johnny, who upset the coach'.
How formed to lead, if not too proud to please
His fame would fire you, but his manners freeze.
Crown, Parliament, and People. 83
Like or dislike, he does not care a jot,
He wants your votes, but your affections not." 1
This lack of paying parliamentary manners undoubtedly
increased the annoyance felt by Radicals at an important
declaration of policy by the Whig leader in the House of
Commons. It was called forth by amendments being
proposed to the first queen's speech (Nov., 1837), de-
manding an extension of the franchise. To this Lord John
offered an uncompromising opposition, urging that the
reform of 1832 had been made as extensive as possible
in the hope that it might be final ; that the reopening of
the question of the franchise would destroy the stability
of our institutions; and that he personally could not
assent to the amendments without being guilty of a
"breach of faith and honour". This declaration, so
creditable to Lord John Russell as a man, excited the
liveliest discontent among advanced reformers, who
thenceforth dubbed him "Finality Jack". But Radicals
proved that they could do more than invent nicknames.
With remorseless logic they proved to the Whigs that
the measure of 1832 could not be final. There were
two principles upon which the people's representatives
could be elected : they could represent either the landed
wealth of the country, or the people of the United King-
dom. If the former were taken as the basis of repre-
sentation, then the apportionment of two members to
Old Sarum was at any rate intelligible, perhaps even
defensible. But the Reform Bill of 1832 had decided in
favour of Manchester and against Old Sarum. On what
principle but that of population could this have been
adopted? It was not the wealth of Manchester which
was thenceforth to be represented in Parliament, but the
opinion of the people of that town ; and if so, why not
that of all the men who could think for themselves?
1 Spencer Walpole's Life of Lord J. Russell, vol. i. chap. 12.
84 The Rise of Democracy.
The argument was irresistible; and whatever "Finality
Jack" might say, the operatives of England regarded the
Act of 1832 as a mere half-way house toward household
suffrage.
The breach between Whigs and Radicals now rapidly
widened, with the result that many of the powerful
political associations started duringthe long and desperate
struggle for reform were now turned against the party
which they had, five years previously, helped to power.
Such, then, was the political position in 1837: our
artisans permeated by levelling ideas concerning pro-
perty; the newly-enfranchised middle class pot-bound
by narrow and sordid interests; the aristocracy mainly
occupied in "preserving their game"; Parliament imbued
with the smug complacency and brusque self-assertion
of the Plugsons and modern Taillefers ; the crown alone
resplendent with a renewed lustre. The outlook was
ominous. Indeed, few years of peace have been more
critical than the first five of the Victorian era. But for
the succession of a popular sovereign, and the hope,
ever-cherished though often deferred, of influencing the
House of Commons by peaceful agitation, our institu-
tions could scarcely have survived the strain.
Chapter VI.
The Rise of Chartism (1838-1839).
The foregoing description will have shown how
favourable were the conditions in our national life for
the rise of a formidable democratic agitation. A bad
harvest, and a serious commercial crisis in 1837, com-
pleted the difficulties of the queen's ministers. Their
acts and their words were scanned with jealous scrutiny
The Rise of Chartism. 85
by Tories in the House and by democrats in the country.
To the parliamentary annalist the Tory gains seemed of
chief importance. We can now see that the future of
English institutions was being decided, not so much at
Westminster, as in the workmen's clubs of our land.
Great commotion had been caused there by recent
ministerial utterances. Lord John Russell's command
to the billows of democracy " Hitherto shalt thou
come, but no further" had only served to recall the
historic defiance of Mrs. Partington to the ocean. The
tide was beginning to turn in against the bulwarks
reared in 1832. The London Working-men's Associa-
tion, irritated by the retention of a penny duty on each
newspaper, and by regulations which portended ruin to
the cheapest journals, was demanding a drastic reform
of Parliament. In a carefully-written pamphlet, The
Rotten House of Commons (Dec., 1836), the secretary,
Lovett, had proved from official returns that, out of the
total number of 6,023,752 adult males in the United
Kingdom, only 839,519 had votes -, while such were the
inequalities in the size of the constituencies that 20
members were returned by 2411 voters, while 20 more
represented as many as 86,072 electors. Fortified by
these facts, the members of the association convened a
public meeting at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand
for giving cohesion to the demands which now were
urged in various quarters; and some 3000 persons
adopted and petitioned for what were soon to be called
the "six points" of the People's Charter viz., universal
suffrage, abolition of property qualification for members
of Parliament, annual Parliaments, equal representation,
payment of members of Parliament, and vote by ballot
at elections.
The derivation of this new Radical programme from
that which was put forward in 1780 has already been
explained. It illustrates that continuity of life, that
86 The Rise of Democracy.
tenacious clinging to old rights which have been our best
safeguard against both despotism and revolution. The
similarity of the programmes of 1780 and 1838 extends
even to details, the clauses as to registration of voters,
and the division of counties into equal electoral districts
each returning one member, being almost identical.
The thoroughly English custom of appealing to prece-
dent is also observable in both documents, Lovett's
introduction to the Charter referring to its identity with
the proposals of 1780, while the earlier programme care-
fully based its claim for household suffrage on the old
principle of "no representation no taxation", and that
for payment of representatives on " the wholesome
practice of ancient times".
The "six points" were formulated by the London
Working-men's Association in the last days of William
IV.'s reign; and a committee of six of their members
was appointed to confer with six Radical members of
Parliament for the drafting of a bill which should give
legal expression to these demands. It is clear from the
details given by Lovett in his Autobiography that the
chief impulse did not come from the parliamentary repre-
sentatives, but from the working-men. Mr. Roebuck,
M.P., well known by his sobriquet Tear 'em, and
Lovett were, after some delay, deputed to draft the bill;
but owing to Roebuck's championship of the cause of
the Canadian insurgents, the work was performed almost
entirely by Lovett. At last, on May 8, 1838, the docu-
ment was published. In an able introduction Lovett
referred to the new democratic measure "as a Charter
they were determined to obtain ". In this phrase, and
in a subsequent remark by O'Connell "There, Lovett,
is your Charter : agitate for it, and never be content with
anything less" may be found the origin of the term
applied not only to the proposed People's Bill, but to the
party and the movement. At the outset, the agitation
The Rise of Chartism. 87
was thoroughly constitutional. Lovett called the atten-
tion of all the working-men's associations to the Whig-
origin of the programme, and contrasted the apathy of
that party, when installed in power, with their earlier
professions, using this as an argument for rendering all
parties alike responsible to the people.
The new movement, however, claims our attention,
not only from its immense influence on our political life,
but also owing to the moral fervour actuating its votaries.
In common with Hetherington, Vincent, Place, and
others, who struggled for the mental and moral im-
provement of artisans, Lovett had insisted on the need
of a higher ideal of life, if they were wisely to discharge
the political rights for which they were struggling. The
aims of the London Association, formed in 1836, had
been primarily "to create a moral, reflecting, energetic
public opinion, so as eventually to lead to a gradual im-
provement in the condition of the working-classes, with-
out violence or commotion " ; to unite the honest, sober,
moral, and thinking portion of their brethren; to form
libraries and debating societies; to gain a cheap and
honest press; to avoid meeting at public-houses; to
instruct women and children with a view to domestic
happiness; "for, be assured, the good that is to be
must be begun by ourselves ".
It would be interesting, did space permit, fully to
compare these enlightened aims with the views set forth
by Carlyle, Owen, and Mazzini. Seven years had elapsed
since the gifted Scotsman had published, in his essay
Signs of the Times, his first indictment against the age,
that men were struggling not for internal perfection but
for external combinations, for institutions and constitu-
tions. As a criticism of the later phases of Chartism,
and, indeed, of latter-day democracy both in England
and on the Continent, this assertion would have been
perfectly justified; but the extracts above cited prove
88 The Rise of Democracy.
conclusively that the founders of Chartism were fully
convinced of the futility of mere external reforms for
which there had been no preparation in the life of the
people. All intelligent democrats Schiller in Germany,
Pestalozzi in Switzerland, and Robert Owen, the " wilful
Welshman " had realized that the failure of democracy
in France was due to the lack of that power of self-
restraint, of that sense of duty to one's fellows, which
forms the moral cement of society. Indeed, this con-
viction may be regarded as one of the most vitalizing
truths of the early part of this century, inspiring many
of the educational, philanthropic, and political efforts
which sought to alleviate the ever-increasing mass of
misery.
" Ah ! your Fouriers failed
Because not poets enough to understand
That life develops from within."
This truth, uttered by our most gifted poetess, was being
seen by all who had either the eye to gaze beneath the
surface, or the sense to bring their schemes to the test
of experience. Even Owen's experiments in education
and co-operation were to have fruitful results, so far as
they helped to mould character and awaken to new in-
quiry. His educational aim, far in advance of his age,
was to fashion fully formed men and women who would
always act in a rational manner, and respond, not to
force, but to reason. The origin of moral-force Chartism
is clearly traceable to the conviction which the compilers
of the Charter had imbibed from Robert Owen as to the
innate reasonableness of well-educated persons, and the
social felicity attainable under conditions which gave
equal opportunity to all.
But the highest note sounded by the early Chartist
leaders also rings responsive to Mazzini's clarion call of
duty. Facts forbid the assumption, otherwise so attrac-
The Rise of Chartism. 89
tive, that the leading artisans of London could have had
any direct contact with the great Italian thinker before
the early part of 1837, when he came as an exile to our
metropolis. True, he had, two years earlier, given to
the world his prophetic work, Faith and the Future; but its
circulation appears to have been then limited to Switzer-
land. A remarkable though unconscious parallelism,
however, exists between the views of the early Chartists
and those of the Italian democrat who claimed that the
struggle for individual rights could but end in anarchy;
while a sense of social duty alone could build up a peace-
ful and noble commonwealth. The struggle for rights,
Mazzini asserted, could only destroy, not found ; whereas
duty associated and constructed. The former killed
self-sacrifice and banished martyrdom from the world;
whereas duty nerved men to lifelong and disinterested
endeavour. The life of Mazzini and the history of latter-
day democracy form an instructive commentary on these
opposing aims and principles.
The falling away of Chartism from its first ideals
cannot be ascribed to the men who struggled equally
for the moral improvement and the political enfranchise-
ment of the masses. At first their belief in the power
of reason and persuasion seemed fully justified. Their
movement began to forge ahead steadily and peacefully
in the teeth of many adverse circumstances. Nothing
is so dangerous as aimless and hopeless misery. The
critical stage of a movement is really well-nigh passed
when turbulent and truculent harangues give way to a
settled conviction that a remedy is attainable. It was
now the aim of the chief Chartist speakers, among whom
Vincent and Hetherington were prominent, to prove that
they could and would gain from Parliament the political
power achieved by the "shopocracy" in 1832. Vincent's
glowing and impassioned oratory, and the more logical
and closely reasoned speeches of Hetherington, told with
90 The Rise of Democracy.
great effect on different types of mind, the former speaker
arousing immense interest, which the latter clinched with
the grip of conviction. Political clubs were started in
several towns, and from feeble beginnings soon grew
into formidable bodies. The People's Charter was en-
thusiastically accepted by immense meetings at Glasgow
and Birmingham, in May and August of 1838, and the
new agitation received the support of very many of the
middle classes, and of their journals. At the former of
these meetings Dr. Wade, the well-known writer on
industrial and social questions, significantly stated that
they had enough physical force behind them, but that
they would rely solely on moral force to gain their per-
fectly legitimate aims.
Such is, in brief outline, a sketch of the chief moral-
force Chartists and of their aims. With some of these
it is impossible not to feel sympathy. Had all the cir-
cumstances of the time been favourable to steady and
rapid social advancement of the proletariate, it seems
probable that these men might have speedily succeeded
in raising the working-men of England to a higher plane
of thought and action. It is even possible that they
might have peacefully gained for their fellows a great
extension of political rights and duties, such as has been
ultimately secured through the working of our party
system.
It was not to be. The prospects of the movement
were soon to be overclouded by the admixture of ' ' physi-
cal-force" elements, which represented the cruder and
fiercer forces at work in our social life. But, before we
notice the warping influence exerted by those who more
or less openly advocated recourse to violence, we must
glance at the events transpiring at Birmingham, where
the second mass meeting of the Chartists was held.
Public affairs there were largely under the control of the
Birmingham Political Union, an important association
The Rise of Chartism. gr
founded mainly for aiding- the reformers in 1830-1832.
It had recently been revived by its founder, Thomas
Attwood, who at that time wielded considerable influence
in the Midlands. Yet it is difficult to believe that the
men of Birmingham ever took him altogether seriously.
A fellow-townsman, Mr. G. J. Holyoake, describes him
as a Royalist and Radical, not remarkable for intellectual
strength, but endowed with a dignified presence and the
faculty of persuasive speech. These qualities, and his
control of the local newspaper, partly account for his
being returned as one of the two members which Bir-
mingham first sent to Westminster. That town must
either have been deeply imbued with the provincialism
which Mr. Holyoake notes as a feature of the Midland
mind; or possibly his election may be ascribed to a
vigorous canvass, in which he is said to have kissed
8000 mothers and their offspring. At any rate, by what-
ever means acquired, Attwood enjoyed immense popu-
larity in Birmingham, though his reforming zeal seems
to have been little more than skin-deep. Resting in
complacent contentment with the 10 franchise of 1832,
Attwood allowed the Birmingham Political Union to
lapse, in 1834, until his failure to convince Parliament
of the supreme importance of his own currency fads led
him again to dally with democracy. The adoption by
Parliament of stringent currency measures, in the autumn
of 1836, certainly tended to stimulate an impending indus-
trial crisis, and gave Attwood the opportunity of reviving
his Union (December, 1836), and of airing his own cur-
rency scheme. His popular manners, his suave speech
resplendent with golden vistas of prosperity, and, above
all, his proprietary rights in the Union, and in the
only newspaper which the Midland capital then boasted,
carried the day there for paper currency and the Charter.
The latter, in Attwood's eyes, was to be as subservient
to the former as the artisans to their middle-class leaders.
92 The Rise of Democracy.
Now, it would have needed immense persuasive powers
to have reconciled artisans who hankered after a division
of property, to the lead of so typical a bourgeois as Att-
wood ; and he possessed few of the needed qualifications,
except fluency. Even his orations, though popular at
the time, aroused suspicions as to the real extent of his
mental powers. He rarely concluded a lengthy harangue
without contradicting the commencement. At the famous
Chartist meeting at Holloway Head, Birmingham, in
August, 1838, the enormous length of the procession,
the blare of bands and waving of banners, seem to have
confused his notions of moral force and physical force ;
for after stating at the outset that he would never sanction
the commission of violence, he exclaimed in his peroration
that if the government dared to arrest him, 100,000 men
should march to demand his release. Not only his ora-
tions but his political schemes seemed to be permeated
with hysteria. Emotional indeed must have been the
mind which could recommend the working-classes to
rest from their toil a whole week a "sacred week"
devoted to peaceful agitation! Yet to the end of his
career he persisted in justifying this by the legendary
incident of the secession of the Roman plebs to the
Aventine. A flood of light is thrown upon his character
by his sketch, written two years later, of the idyllic pro-
ceedings which were to grace the sacred week. " On
the first day we will offer up on our bended knee a
solemn prayer to God for his blessing on our righteous
cause. On the second we will enter into a solemn league
and covenant with each other, swearing that we will
never cease from legal exertions until the National Peti-
tion shall have been carried into a law. The third day
of the week we will devote to a general canvass of
all the electors of the House of Commons: and so we
will go on to the end of the week, which will be the most
memorable in the history of the world. I may perish:
The Rise of Chartism. 93
but if I live to conduct this great operation, and the
people support me, I promise you that our country shall
exhibit such a sublime spectacle as the wide earth and
the wide range of history never before exhibited." 1 Such
was the man whose eccentric nature was to exercise a
comet-like influence on the nebulous life of newly en-
franchised Birmingham.
In clearness of view and strength of character Attwood
yielded the palm to a working-man named John Collins,
who soon acquired a reputation for straightforwardness
and for the courage with which he, along with Lovett,
dared the penalties of the law. His influence was to
outlast that of Attwood, as the flight of a bird outstrips
that of a butterfly ; and ultimately he did much to enroll
Birmingham Radicals in the Chartist ranks.
As regards details, we may note that the Birmingham
Political Union at first advocated merely household
suffrage (as against the universal suffrage of the Char-
ter) and triennial Parliaments, while it omitted equal
electoral districts. On the other hand, it laid stress on
payment of members of Parliament, and on the need of
a heavy property tax which should supersede all other
imposts. The indirect influence of these demands was
to be considerable. Artisans and no small part of the
shopkeepers of the Midlands, after going so far, were
soon led to adopt the complete Chartist programme;
and the tone of the Birmingham Journal became for a
time ultra-Radical if not distinctly Chartist.
In fact, the whole trend of events was favouring the
advanced wing of the party. If the moral-force men
derived their convictions from the teaching of Owen as
to the reasonableness of well-informed persons, the men
of force could with equal justice point to the hopeless-
ness of expecting constitutional action from the un-
taught, underfed masses. When oppressed by Corn-
1 See the Birming ham Journal of June 19, 1841.
94 The Rise of Democracy.
law and Poor-law alike, could these be expected to
keep the peace towards a government which, they
asserted, had tricked them in and after 1832, and was
using force to crush the justifiable discontent of the
Canadians? As has been already noted, the publication
of the Charter coincided with a time of intense distress
at home. The new Poor-law was being generally
enforced when corn was rising to an average of more
than sixty shillings per quarter; so that the cruel alter-
native of liberty with starvation or of state relief in
the workhouse confronted increasing numbers of the
respectable poor. The close of the year 1837 had
witnessed an outbreak in a Leicestershire workhouse
which was quelled only by military force. In Kent the
popular ignorance, credulity, and hatred of the new
law was seen in a riotous concourse of peasants which
gathered around a lunatic named Thorn, who proclaimed
himself the Saviour of the world, especially from the
injustice of the new Poor-law. On a body of troops
being sent against him from Canterbury, he shot their
commander dead. A volley from the soldiers ended his
life and scattered his dupes ; but they long afterwards
cherished the belief that their leader would reappear to
rid them of the new tyranny.
Far more serious was the discontent in the north of
England, where the old system of poor-relief had been
less abused than was the case in the southern and south-
midland counties, which the new Act of 1834 saved from
impending ruin. The "salutary harshness" to use
Carlyle's phrase of the new measure accordingly
aroused in the north a deep and passionate resentment,
which was to be the chief feeder of physical-force
Chartism. These feelings were most prominently ex-
pressed by two men, Stephens and Oastler, who always
called themselves Tories, but whose words and acts
fanned the embers of Radicalism well-nigh to a blaze.
The Rise of Chartism. 95
Joseph Rayner Stephens was, or rather had been,
a Wesleyan minister at Ashton- under -Lyne; but his
championship of disestablishment had in 1834 caused
his removal from his pastoral charge for having "fla-
grantly violated the peaceable and antisectarian spirit of
Wesleyan Methodism". He thereupon flung himself
into the cause of factory reform, then being pressed on
by Oastler, Fielden, Sadler, and others; but his powers
of inflammatory speech were chiefly directed against
the poor-law commissioners and their work. Thus, at
Newcastle on January i, 1838, he threatened that if
their enactments were put in force, "Newcastle ought
to be, and should be, one blaze of fire, with only one
way to put it out, and that with the blood of all those
who supported this abominable law ". Later on, when
speaking at a banquet given to Mr. Fielden, M.P., for
his opposition to the law in Parliament, Stephens urged
the people to shed their blood rather than submit to
that law of devils, which evidently aimed at making
the new poor-law Bastilles a chain of barracks for the
" Russellite rural police", and for the subjection of a
free people. Words like these became highly dangerous
when uttered to large torch-light gatherings held around
many northern towns in the autumn of 1838, especially
when the emotional orator urged the need of muskets.
At last, at a vast meeting held at Hyde in Cheshire,
the orator, fired by the sight of faces lurid with hunger
and hatred, exclaimed that the time for action had come,
as the soldiers had been won over to the people's side;
and a challenge "Are you ready?" was answered by a
discharge of firearms. The authorities were now aroused
from their half-contemptuous toleration. Stephens was
arrested, and was condemned to eighteen months' im-
prisonment. Never had Lancashire and Cheshire been
nearer to open insurrection than on the receipt of this
news. Needy operatives showed their regard for the
96 The Rise of Democracy.
people's champion by subscribing nearly ^2000 for the
relief of his wife and family; and the man who was
already beginning to utilize this indignation for the
physical-force Chartists, won golden opinions by declar-
ing that, should the tyrannical government decide to
transport the people's champion, his manacled limbs
should pass to the convict ship only over the lifeless
body of Feargus O'Connor.
Much as we may sympathize with the characters and
even with many of the aims of the moral-force Chartists,
these men seem open to the charge of folly in expecting
that sweeping changes could be peaceably effected in our
constitution, when the masses of the people were so
ignorant and excitable as the foregoing recital proves
them to have been. The miserable conditions of life in
the factory townships had wrought a sinister change not
only in the well-being, but in the moral character of the
population; and much remedial work was to be done,
much legislation to be enacted, before so enlightened a
democrat as John Stuart Mill could give his vote for
the enfranchisement of all householders. Besides, the
Chartist programme itself was open to grave suspicions
of serving merely as a prelude to a forcible redistribution
of property; and there are grounds for believing that
the "six points" by themselves would not at that time
have aroused any wide-spread enthusiasm, had they not
been irradiated by the golden gleams of Owenism.
Neither expectant artisans nor timid bourgeois ever for-
got that Lovett, Hetherington, and other prominent
moral -force men were followers of the seer of New
Lanark, who promised that his system must peaceably
lead to equalization of fortune. It is true that many
of his followers, especially Lovett, had forsaken the
hazy fanaticism of Owen in favour of modern co-opera-
tive methods. Yet the Owenite taint clung about moral-
force Chartism even when it promised the inevitable
The Physical-Force Chartists. 97
triumph of reason and the discomfiture of brute force.
All who knew what were the ulterior aims of Robert
Owen, and how wide was the popularity of Hodgkin's
levelling- dogmas, saw the futility of carrying out by
peaceful methods aims which at that time would have
produced revolutionary results. The discouragement
which overtook Lovett, Vincent, and others in the midst
of their political career may safely be attributed to more
than mere disgust at the vagaries of O'Connor. They
must have seen that they were in a false position,
ostensibly leading a movement that was propelled by
unscrupulous men who more correctly interpreted the
passions of the crowd. They were the Girondists of
English democracy, doomed to personal failure, though
some of their ideals were finally to be realized. For the
present, they saw popularity slip from their grasp into
that of Feargus O'Connor.
Chapter VII.
The Physical-Force Chartists.
Rarely has any man leapt to popularity so deftly and
rapidly as the gifted Irishman, who was destined for
ten years to be the foremost of democratic leaders and
to take the place of O'Connell as the prince of mob
orators. Feargus O'Connor, who claimed descent from
a line of old Irish kings, first gained a reputation at the
Irish bar by his imposing presence, powerful voice,
rollicking wit, and consummate assurance.
His forensic successes were, however, only a prelude
to a wider popularity. It was in O'Connell's train, or
"tail" as irreverent Saxons termed it, that O'Connor
first displayed that power over a crowd which a robust
(M 416 ) G
98 The Rise of Democracy.
frame, stentorian tones, and fluent oratory generally
ensure. When elected member for Cork in 1833, he
soon came into collision with his equally masterful
leader, whose fitful acts of complaisance to the Whigs
were resented by his more Radical subaltern. As neither
could brook opposition, O'Connell was left in undisputed
sway in Ireland, while his ambitious compatriot sought
a new sphere of conquest in the discontented proletariate
of England. O'Connor's success in England was start-
Kng and complete. Continental writers who sneer at
John Bull's insularity are ignorant of the real catholicity
of taste which that much-maligned personage evinces in
the presence of genuine merit. The Athens of Pericles
was not more appreciative of sterling excellence in men
of another race, than were the English working-men on
whose feelings Feargus O'Connor played at will, who
in more recent times have hung in rapt attention on the
stately periods of the great Hungarian patriot Kossuth,
and have thronged to shake hands with Garibaldi. The
causes of O'Connor's success with the men of the Mid-
lands and North are not far to seek. His brawny frame,
thick neck, and distinguished air, appealed at once to
an athletic people ; and their hearts were won when the
descendant of a long line of kings roared forth his
denunciations of the Whig tyrants, or, darting from
grave to gay, described the treatment which he would
accord to "Harry Brougham and his wife" when their
power was overthrown and they came to the poorhouse
"Softly, my lady, you go not in with your spouse:
turn here, if you please, to the female ward". But popular
favour reached its climax when, as happened at New-
castle, O'Connor turned from the facetious topic of
workhouse discipline, and the restriction of pauper
population, to hurl defiance at the troops who were
marching up to the outskirts of the vast throng on the
Town Moor. A man whose presence was so command-
The Physical-Force Chartists. 99
ing-, whose voice seemed to rend the welkin, whose
gibes called forth shouts of laughter, whose indignation
could excite a vast crowd to cries of defiance or ven-
geance, evidently possessed all the superficial charac-
teristics of a Danton. But fortunately for England and
for Chartism, O'Connor had neither the statesmanlike
width of view nor the persistent audacity which made
the leader of the French sans-culottes so potent a force
in 1792. It is true, the circumstances of 1792 and 1839
were widely different. Probably the heroes of sans-culot-
tism might have cut very sorry figures had they been
confronted by forces of law and order so commanding
as those of Queen Victoria's government; and possibly
Carlyle's verdict as to the Titanesque grandeur of Dan-
ton might have been modified, had his hero ever come
face to face with a greatly superior force of Parisian
special constables. Some allowance must be made for
the altered circumstances of the case. Feargus O'Con-
nor, indeed, took care to make every such allowance;
for in most of his physical-force outbursts he took refuge
in the immunity which attaches to poetical rhapsodies
such as
" Then onward, your green standards waving,
Go flesh every sword to the hilt !"
On other occasions he balanced his most inflammatory
appeals with a prudent superfluity of conditional clauses.
Of this latter device his speech in the Palace Yard,
Westminster (Sept. 17, 1838), offers a good example.
After cautioning the people against rioting and civil war
he continued "But still, in the hearing of the House
of Commons, I will say that rather than see the people
oppressed, rather than see the constitution violated
while the people are in daily want, why then, if no
other man will do so, I myself will lead them to death
or glory ".
ioo The Rise of Democracy.
But Feargus O'Connor was to win glory, not only as
a highly entertaining orator, but as a most effective
journalist. He had already succeeded in the somewhat
hazardous enterprise of braving the newspaper regula-
tions enacted in 1836. In the course of his political
campaign of 1837, he accordingly appealed to some sub-
stantial men for help in the establishment of a Radical
weekly journal. Several of them clubbed together to
subscribe 800 for his venture the Northern Star and
Leeds Advertiser, the first number of which appeared
on Nov. 1 8, 1837. It was a large-sized paper of eight
pages, and was sold for fourpence halfpenny, the editor
being a Mr. Hill, and, later, the well-known physical-
force Chartist, George Julian Harney. At the outset,
however, it aimed at securing merely universal suffrage,
the immediate abolition of the Poor-law of 1834, "and
the establishment of a respectable provision, unattended
with degradation, for every unwilling idler in the state.
. . . We must endeavour to raise working men to a
state of perfect equality with their richer neighbours."
This pronouncement was evidently intended to attract
not only the political Radicals, but also Tory democrats
like Oastler and Stephens, and levellers imbued with the
theories of Spence and Hodgkin ; and even for some time
after the publication of the Charter, O'Connor continued
to deal in vague tirades and alluring promises. But,
skilfully trimming his sails to every shift of the popularis
aura, O'Connor took up the Chartist programme when
its popularity was assured by the great meeting at
Birmingham; and what he lacked in originating power
was more than atoned for by the increasing vehemence
of his advocacy. The defects of his speeches, their
tinsel rhetoric, shambling arguments, and random con-
clusions, were forgotten amidst the impression created
by his Celtic complaisance of manner and the rever-
berations of his stentorian voice, so that his dexterous
The Physical-Force Chartists. 101
championship of physical force began to turn the scale
against the more prudent counsels of the best artisans
of London, Birmingham, and Edinburgh.
The great popularity of his paper, some 60,000 copies
of which were sold every week, not only increased his
influence, but depressed that of rivals. For a time he
had, as regular contributor, Bronterre O'Brien, a man of
great energy and ability, devoted to the levelling theories
of the day ; but before long ambition and love of power
led to their separation, amidst mutual exasperation.
Bronterre O'Brien was perhaps superior in mental train-
ing and attainments to all the Chartist leaders. He had
shown his journalistic powers in numerous articles written
for Hetherington's unstamped paper, and his literary skill
in a forcible defence of Robespierre. As an orator he
excelled equally in argument, satire, or passionate in-
vective ; while his grip on practical life was to be shown
by his merciless exposure of the silly scheme of a sacred
month. The antipathy existing between him and O'Con-
nor finally became an open feud, which seriously damaged
the Chartist cause. After leaving the Northern Star,
O'Brien started a paper called the Operative] but neither
this nor Hetherington's London Despatch the chief organ
of the moral-force party enjoyed the success of O'Con-
nor's organ, which was unrivalled in the history of popular
journalism. The very defects of the paper seemed to
drive it to the front. No bluster about the right of re-
volt could be talked by a quaking tiro in a village barn
but it was tricked out and belauded by the sensational
northern journal ; and the London Working-men's Asso-
ciation had the mortification of witnessing the perversion
of the popular press and the degradation of their demo-
cratic ideals.
Besides the journals named above, the chief Radical
newspapers were Henry Vincent's (unstamped) Western
Vindicator, published at Bath; the Northern Liberator,
102 The Rise of Democracy.
published at Newcastle; the True Scotsman, published
at Edinburgh; William Carpenter's Charter', and the
Cliampion, edited by the sons of William Cobbett. All
of these papers, in spite of occasional fiery articles,
advocated moral -force principles; but the deepening
distress of the time inclined the balance in favour of
more violent counsels. The connection between misery
and physical -force Chartism was seen not only in the
factory districts, where Oastler was hailed as "king",
but also in the metropolis. The silk-weavers of Spital-
fields, reduced to the verge of starvation by the decline
of their industry, offered promising materials for would-
be revolutionists, such as the uncompromising George
Julian Harney. This ardent young man, after suffering
three terms of imprisonment for his work in connection
with the free-press agitation, was now the life and soul
of the London Democratic Association, which soon num-
bered some 3000 members, drawn mainly from the suffer-
ing masses of East London. The wearing of the red cap
of liberty, and the words " Universal suffrage or death"
at the end of their documents, revealed their admiration
for the principles of Robespierre, and conveyed the hint
that even the methods of Marat might be applied to the
British bourgeoisie.
Another frank and fearless champion of a forcible
overthrow of government was Dr. John Taylor, perhaps
the ablest of the Scottish Chartists. Coming of a good
Ayrshire family, he had been trained for the medical
profession, which he had practised first in the navy,
and later at Glasgow. His bold sailor-like bearing and
affable manners, his manly appearance and fluent speech,
together with his honest indignation at the misery of the
poor, marked him out as one of the worthiest and most
popular of Chartist leaders. Lowery, once a tailor, was
one of the clearest and most convincing speakers: his
small and rather deformed figure seemed to plead for
The Physical-Force Chartists. 103
the victims of the slop-shop and the sweater's den, and
presented a contrast to his mental gifts, which may
possibly have suggested to Kingsley the character of
Alton Locke.
It is impossible to describe in detail the local leaders.
Rider of Leeds, Marsden of Preston, Dr. M'Douall of
Ashton-under-Lyne, and Neesom of Bristol were promi-
nent advocates of physical force in the Chartist Conven-
tion, which now claims a brief notice.
Delegates from Chartist clubs or gatherings were
elected early in the year 1839 to form a Convention,
which was to draw up the petition for the Charter, and
discuss matters relating to the democratic cause. At
the first meetings of the Convention in London (Feb. 1839)
the schism in the Chartist ranks became apparent. The
sons of William Cobbett, acting along with Dr. Wade
and others, demanded that the work of the Convention
should cease with the presentation of the petition, a
half-hearted motion which was rejected mainly through
the vigorous oratory of O'Connor, Harney, and Marsden.
Thereupon three delegates from Birmingham, Dr. Wade,
and other Cobbettites successively withdrew from the
Convention. For various reasons this body now decided
to remove to Birmingham (May 13), a step which was to
increase the excitement already existing in the Midland
capital. Events which will presently be described served
to exasperate even the most law-abiding Chartists, and
elicited from one of the Scottish delegates to the Con-
vention the threat "We must shake our oppressors
well over hell's mouth, but we must not let them drop
in ". When such was the sentiment of a moral -force
Chartist, it seems surprising that the peace was preserved
at vast meetings held at Whitsuntide, in pursuance of
the advice of the Convention. The increasing schism in
that body seems to have suggested this device of throw-
ing the responsibility for future action on to the people,
104 The Rise of Democracy.
whose advice was to be sought on the following subjects:
withdrawal of money from banks, the advisability of a
"sacred month", of procuring arms, and of dealing
exclusively at "Chartist" shops. As might have been
expected from all signs of the times, the vast meetings
held at Kennington Common; Kearsall Moor, near
Manchester; Peep Green, in the West Riding of York-
shire; Glasgow; and among the miners of Monmouth-
shire, decided virtually in favour of the less prudent
course.
A slight acquaintance with human nature might have
warned the moral-force Chartists against an appeal to
mass meetings. Great are the perils of emotional oratory.
The speaker who appears to hold his audience spell-bound
is himself a victim to the subtle influence reflected from
a sea of upturned faces ; and the more potent the electric
current of sympathy necessary to oratorical success, the
more completely does the speaker merge his individuality
in the excited crowd which confronts him. Moreover,
the simultaneous meetings of Whitsuntide were held
shortly after the arrival of news from the West sufficient
to dash all hopes of a peaceful compromise. Vincent
had just been arrested at Newport. This does not appear
altogether to have been due to magisterial tyranny and
the selfish fears of shopkeepers. Vincent's conduct must
be held largely responsible for the collision. Once a
pillar of moral force, he had lately been lured on by his
sympathetic nature into excited harangues that endan-
gered the peace of the west country. The desire to be
in the forefront of the enthusiasts, always a mischievous
influence in times of excitement, had even led one of
Vincent's ardent supporters, a chemist of Trowbridge,
named Potts, to decorate his shop window with bullets
labelled Tory pills. 1 General alarm was caused in the
west by Vincent's oratory, and the authorities determined
1 Gammage, History of the Chartist Movement, p. 80 (edition of 1894).
The Physical-Force Chartists. 105
to arrest him for a speech delivered at Newport, in which
he was reported to have exclaimed, "When the time for
resistance arrives, let your cry be, ' To your tents, O
Israel ' ". It is only fair to add that Vincent and his
friends denied any seditious intention in this speech, and
charged the magistrates with endeavouring- to provoke
a disturbance by his arrest. For the present the miners
of that county were held in check by the military; but
the news of Vincent's imprisonment aroused fierce in-
dignation, which subsequent events at Newport were to
intensify.
The exasperation caused by this news found vent in
the suggestions of O'Connor, Dr. Taylor, and others that
a run on the banks should be forthwith commenced, and
that a "sacred month" should be observed by all opera-
tives. The latter proposal, first proposed by the leveller
Benbow in 1831, and recently set to idyllic music by Mr.
Attwood, was now received with loud applause, though
a contemporary observer remarks that the artisans who,
amidst the excitement of meetings, cheered for the
month's holiday, were afterwards beset with misgivings
in their own homes. The proposal was really acceptable
only to the dupes who could not gauge its results, to
the knaves who desired civil war, and to hard-pressed
manufacturers who desired a temporary relief from the
burden of unremunerative wages. Indeed, its approval
by masters as a cure for over-production was so marked
as to enlighten some of the dupes; while the knaves
unmasked their own designs by suggesting that the
sacred month should be during harvest, thus leaving
the crops to the mercy of the elements. Lovett and
Bronterre O'Brien by persistent efforts succeeded in
postponing the acceptance of this proposal until after
the decision of Parliament as to the National Petition
for the Charter.
This document was of a legal and wholly unobjection-
io6 The Rise of Democracy.
able tenor, recommending the adoption by Parliament
of the "points" above named, with the exception of that
for equal electoral districts, which was now omitted. The
methods of the canvassers had in some cases, it is true,
been menacing, especially that of entering in a "black
book " the names of those who refused to support the
democratic cause; and the suggestion of the Northern
Star, that half a million of men armed with muskets
ought to escort the petition to Westminster, may well
have prejudiced Parliament against the petition. It was
perhaps also unfortunate that the document was pre-
sented (June 14, 1839) by Mr. Attwood, whose eccentri-
cities were undermining his influence both in Parliament
and in the country. The appearance of the National
Petition as a huge cylinder of parchment, rolled into the
House by stalwart backers, was also provocative of
mirth; but there was little if any of that contemptuous
behaviour which the Chartists believed to have been
shown towards their document. On the contrary, the
House suspended one of its standing orders, so as to
allow Mr. Attwood to make a speech concerning the
monster petition; and it fixed July 12 as the day for
hearing a detailed statement of the Chartist case.
But before that date arrived, events had happened
at Birmingham which further widened the breach
between Parliament and people. The Midland capital
had for some weeks been disturbed by Chartist meetings
held in one of the central points of that busy town. In
the open space near Nelson's statue, called the Bull
Ring, where bull-baiting had until recently ministered
to the athletic instincts of the Midlanders, the newer
democratic excitement had sought an outlet in the public
reading of the one weekly newspaper which Birmingham
could at that time support. After reading aloud the
Birmingham Journal to a crowd eager for news and
oratory, the reader gave his comments in forcible terms.
The Physical-Force Chartists. 107
After a prohibition of these meetings by the mayor, they
were transferred for a time to other less central spots.
Nevertheless the local Chartist leaders, owing- to alleged
violent language, were arrested by "the two constables
of the town" assisted by "two police officers and two
of the town watchmen ". The growing excitement con-
vinced the mayor, Mr. Scholefield, that the disjointed
police force of the town would not suffice to put a stop
to the meetings in the Bull Ring, which were now de-
fiantly resumed. It was in vain that the mayor went in
person to that spot to beg the people not to assemble.
The magistrates, unable to compose the popular tumults,
applied to Lord John Russell for a contingent of London
police. On the arrival of the metropolitan constables
they were at once conveyed in omnibuses near to the
Bull Ring, and were ordered by the mayor and magi-
strates to disperse the crowd "quietly and temperately
but firmly and decidedly". Selecting from these self-
cancelling orders the rule of conduct most congenial to
themselves, the constabulary marched to the attack;
and, led though they were by the mayor, began to use
their truncheons on all who seemed inclined to dispute
their progress. After a moment's pause of sheer con-
sternation the crowd scattered in headlong flight.
Flushed with their triumph, the constables became sepa-
rated in the ardour of the pursuit, until they fell an easy
prey to the rallying populace. Chased now in their
turn, they took refuge in the Public Office, where they
remained until the arrival of the military released them
and cowed the rioters, who were beginning to tear down
the iron railings of St. Thomas' Church.
Such was July 4th the prelude to a far more serious
riot eleven days later. For in the meantime the over-
bearing conduct of the London police inflamed the wrath
of the townsfolk, which increased on the news of the
arrest of Dr. Taylor, Lovett, and Collins. Taylor's
io8 The Rise of Democracy.
crime was his alleged participation in the riot, though
he interfered at the end only to prevent the maltreat-
ment of the police by the victorious mob. The crime of
Lovett and Collins was the signature of the protest
drawn up by the National Convention against the
conduct of the police and the arrest of Dr. Taylor. Far
more serious, however, was the provocation given to
the people by the decisive refusal of Parliament (July 12)
even to consider the National Petition for the Charter.
Lord John Russell denied that the electorate needed any
expansion, and that there was much misery in the land ;
while he declaimed against the Chartists as promoting
disorder with a view to the equal division of property.
After this rebuff an outburst of indignation was almost
inevitable.
Still, there seemed to be few signs of a riot at 5 P.M.
on July 15, when the mayor left the Public Office for his
villa at Edgbaston. A crowd of men and boys had, it
is true, assembled at Holloway Head, attracted by a
suspicious notice that Mr. Attwood, the Radical member
for Birmingham, would address them there. As Att-
wood was then in London, this was obviously a device
for drawing together a crowd to hear their member's
account of his reception by the House of Commons.
Disappointed by Attwood's non-arrival, the Chartists
marched in procession through the town, along the
Warwick road, to meet Lovett and Collins, who, having
found bail, had just been released from the county
prison. Linking arm in arm, the Radicals marched in
orderly ranks through the Bull Ring, and were proceed-
ing towards the Warwick road, when news followed
that the London police were maltreating people in the
Bull Ring. The truth was that they had roughly ar-
rested a man who was reading aloud from a newspaper,
and that his auditors had forcibly rescued him. This
news was the spark which set Birmingham in a blaze.
The Physical-Force Chartists. 109
At once the procession turned back for vengeance on the
hated policemen before their expected return to London.
Even now, appeals to the good sense of the crowd were
not wanting; but they were lost on the more inflammable
spirits, who, overpowering the police, kept them cooped
up in the Public Office. The demons of class hatred,
riot, plunder, were now let loose. Gangs of youths
began to march into the neighbouring streets, breaking
open the shops and scattering about their goods. The
sight of the smashed shutters and strewn linen of a
draper's shop suggested a bonfire, and soon an enormous
fire was blazing in front of Nelson's statue, whence
brands were forthwith plucked to fire any dwelling as
private malice or blind love of destruction dictated. The
latter impulse certainly was uppermost; for most of the
incendiaries were mere lads, one who fired a chemist's
shop being a shoeless ragged urchin. Where were the
stalwart London constables in the meantime? Held
in reserve in the Public Office until the arrival of two
magistrates to read the Riot Act. And the mayor and
magistrates? Were at home in the suburbs, ignorant
of the pandaemonium in the Bull Ring. The one magi-
strate who did arrive judged that the mob was too large
and fierce to quell until the soldiers came up. At last
the cumbrous legal machinery got the redcoats and blue-
coats to work; and their action speedily dispersed the
rioters, the thieves being now glutted with plunder,
while the hobbledehoys slunk away, alarmed at the
results of their own temerity. The destruction was,
indeed, considerable, amounting to some ^40,000 or
^50,000. Yet the committee of the town -council
which was charged to report on these events asserted
the damage to be less than that caused by the ultra-
loyalists of Birmingham in the Priestley riots of 1792;
and they ended their investigation (to which I am mainly
indebted for the foregoing account) with a protest
no The Rise of Democracy.
against their town being forthwith burdened by a new
constabulary force dependent on the government, and
therefore "insulting to the people of Birmingham, and
dangerous to the municipal rights and liberties of the
country at large". 1 Irritation against the new central-
ized system of police may perhaps have biased the judg-
ment of the committee; but all the evidence seems to
convict the London police of overbearing conduct, and
gives some colour to the arguments of Chartists that
the government sought to provoke them to deeds of
violence. On the other hand, the Duke of Wellington
sought to make party capital out of the occurrence by
taunting the government with having done nothing to
prevent disorder in Birmingham ; and he further merged
the statesman in the partisan by making (on newspaper
evidence) an assertion which sounded strangely on the
lips of the victor of Badajoz, that the state of Birming-
ham after the Chartist riots was worse than that of a
city taken by storm.
The facts of the case, when stripped of the exaggera-
tion of partisans or alarmists, appear to be these : that
the government did either too much or too little ; either
they should have sent an overwhelming force of soldiers
or police, or they should have counselled the use of the
most conciliatory methods. As for the local authorities,
they seem open to censure for lack of foresight and
preparation at a time when the rejection of the Charter
by Parliament portended a renewal of conflict with the
1 Russell's Police Bill of 1839, as modified at Peel's suggestion, em-
powered any town to raise and support a local police, subject, however, to
the general control of commissioners, who had similar powers over the
county police raised by county magistrates. The events of 1839, then,
hurried on the formation of a police force, which was rendered compulsory
and therefore universal by the act of 1856. It should be added that owing
to the protests of the men of Birmingham, led by Joseph Sturge, the
original proposals for subjecting the police force to a central commissioner
were so far modified as to leave the chief control to local elective authorities.
See Memoirs of J. Sturge, ch. 12.
The Physical-Force Chartists. in
detested London police. An official inquiry, however,
exonerated them from blame; and it is clear that the
events of July 15, far from being organized, were unex-
pected, and may even be classed as fortuitous.
The real sufferers were not the Birmingham trades-
men, nor even the rate-payers in the "hundred of
Hemlingford ", who had to pay their damages, but the
Chartists themselves. The previous disturbances at
Birmingham, together with riots at Llanidloes, seemed
to give colour to the assertions of Lord John Russell,
and of Whig and Tory newspapers, that Chartists were
mere sedition-mongers. It was in vain that the Chartist
Convention, on the motion of Bronterre O'Brien, ex-
pressed its disapproval of the insane project of a "sacred
month" (Aug. 6), and urged the use only of constitu-
tional methods. Repression and imprisonment were
now the order of the day. At Warwick, Lovett and
Collins were sentenced to a year's imprisonment. The
same sentence was meted out to Vincent at Newport.
Many others, including Bronterre O'Brien, were harshly
punished; while O'Connor, perhaps the most seditious
of all, was released from detention on suspiciously
small bail. Thinned by defections or arrests, and
weakened still more by internal dissensions, the first
Chartist Convention declared its dissolution on Sept. 6,
1839.
The first genuinely democratic assembly which had
met on English soil for centuries displayed many of the
best, but also some of the weaker, political qualities of
our race a sturdy belief in the ultimately healing effect
of liberty and in the ability of overwrought operatives
to use that precious boon without abusing it, an equally
persistent determination to abide by the laws if the law-
makers showed fair-play, and a certain dogged patience
amidst depressing and occasionally exasperating circum-
stances which few peoples are wont to evince. But
ii2 The Rise of Democracy.
along with these good qualities was to be seen that
proneness to faction and schism which hinders Britons
from effective organization, and defers the triumph of
democracy to a time when firmer cohesion has been
learnt in the school of adversity. And yet a comparison
of the debates in the Convention with those of the House
of Commons in the summer of 1839, so far from dis-
crediting the Chartist cause, will show why the demo-
cratic claims, when freed from the suspicions which then
naturally attached to them, have in our own days re-
ceived almost complete recognition.
It is unnecessary to follow in similar detail the events
of 1839-1841, which further exasperated the Chartists;
but a brief notice must be given to the outbreak at
Newport on Nov. 1839, if only from the fact of its being
the last serious collision which has occurred between
the people and the authorities in England. The arrest
of Henry Vincent, and his harsh treatment as a common
felon in Monmouth jail, had aroused fierce resentment
among the miners, who had often hung on the words
of "the Chartist Demosthenes". Appeals, which re-
ceived the support of Lord Brougham, were made, and
with some slight success, in favour of more lenient
treatment. Prominent among those who made the
appeals was a tradesman and magistrate of Newport
named Frost. For his vehement Chartist speeches Lord
John Russell had recently dismissed him from the magis-
tracy, an act against which his fellow-citizens protested.
Smarting under his own and his party's wrongs, Frost
planned with the miners of his county a great armed
demonstration for the release of Vincent and other pri-
soners. The miners, some armed with muskets, others
with pickaxes or iron-tipped sticks, were to have seized
Newport in the dead of night. But the heavy rain and
miry roads damped the ardour of very many and delayed
the march of the most determined, so that the autho-
The Physical-Force Chartists. 113
rities were able hastily to dispose thirty soldiers and
several special constables in an hotel which then stood
in a commanding' position in the town. As the miners,
numbering some thousands, began to flood the space
in front of the hotel, the mayor summoned them to
disperse, and on their refusal read the Riot Act. The
shutters were then thrown open for the soldiers to reply
to the dropping shots now directed against the building".
Three volleys killed twenty Chartists, besides wounding
many more; and the rioters fled in confusion.
In the trial of Frost and his accomplices for high
treason, it was stated upon oath by one witness that
the ringleaders had planned to stop the mail-coach for
Birmingham, and that its non-arrival there was to serve
as a signal for a general revolt through the Midlands
and North. This story, which constituted a grave charge
of high treason, had gained general credence, though
upon slender evidence. Its flimsiness was skilfully
demonstrated by the able counsel for the defence, who
reminded the jury that the Newport mail -bags were
always ferried across the Severn to join the mail-coach,
which would in any case run from Bristol to Birming-
ham. The evidence was not absolutely decisive of the
charge that Frost, Williams, and Jones led the mob wit-
tingly to attack the soldiers. The charge of high treason
was, however, held to be made good at law; and for
nearly the last time a British court of justice heard the
awful doom awaiting a traitor, of being drawn on a
hurdle to the scaffold, there to be hanged and decapi-
tated (Jan. 1840). The commutation of this brutal
sentence to transportation for life was one of the un-
happily few exhibitions of mercy towards men rendered
desperate by their wrongs; and the whole policy of the
government further envenomed the feelings of millions
of Radicals during the months of hopeless misery that
followed. Despair settled down not only on our artisans,
(M416) H
ii4 The Rise f Democracy.
but on our thinkers. " The state of society in England",
wrote Dr. Arnold to Thomas Carlyle in Jan., 1840, "was
never yet paralleled in history." And the seer of Chelsea
prefaced his epoch-marking 1 work, CJiartism, with the
warning that the essence of Chartism had not been put
down: "The matter of Chartism is weighty, deep-
rooted, far-extending; did not begin yesterday; will by
no means end this day or to-morrow".
Chapter VIII.
The Complete-Suffrage Movement.
It is a well-known fact that a beaten crew always
consoles itself by quarrelling. The feather-weights,
accused of weakness and scratchiness, retaliate by
accusing ponderous number five of being an expensive
passenger; while all agree that stroke was irregular
and "cox" steered wildly.
As in aquatics, so in politics, failure sows broad-
cast a plentiful crop of suspicions and recriminations.
Charges of folly against the headstrong are met by
taunts of cowardice or bribery flung at the prudent; and
after the war of ink and mud has ceased, those are
seen to be the least bespattered who have flung most
assiduously. Truth herself meanwhile retires to a safe
distance; and the prudent historian generally imitates
the action of his guiding deity, hopeless of discerning
fact amid the wordy war. He notes, however, that
prudence and moderation are for the time overborne by
the stalwarts, who by the success of their own verbosity
are lured still further on their dangerous path.
Such was the general condition of the Chartist
movement in and after 1840. The mutual distrust of
The Complete-Suffrage Movement. 115
leaders and followers, the conflicts between "moral
force" and "physical force", were more damaging to the
cause than all the repressive measures of government.
They argued a mental unfitness to manage the affairs
of the party, still more, therefore, the affairs of the
whole nation. Enlightened Radicals mourned over the
schisms, and many of them discerned the cause to be a
lack of any effective education. Their judgment was
correct. It is ignorance which isolates men, keeping
each individual pot-bound by his own notions and pre-
judices and therefore unable or unwilling to merge his
will in the collective will, save under the pressure of
force. Ignorance, accordingly, though the best ally of
despotism, is the deadliest foe of democracy.
Perhaps there is one mental state which is rather
more mischievous than complete ignorance, viz. the first
glimmer of knowledge which in shallow natures begets
conceit; for then the mind, newly awakened by news-
paper articles or heated club rhetoric, clings to its shred
of truth as if it were the whole truth. Such was the
perilous position of British democracy in the Chartist
times. The occasion called for a Socrates to teach men
the eternal truth that the first step towards wisdom is
the consciousness of ignorance. It found the teacher
in Thomas Carlyle, who in varied cadences, from the
freshness and buoyancy of Past and Present (1843) to
the wail of despair which echoes through his Latter Day
Pamphlets, ceased not to teach the rich their responsi-
bilities, the idle the sacredness of labour, and the whole
people that they were "mostly fools". In more sym-
pathetic and therefore more telling words, the Rev.
Frederick Denison Maurice pleaded for national educa-
tion as the only means of securing a healthy and noble
existence for the people; and the increasing demand for
effective training of the popular intelligence led up to
the hapless Education Act of 1843 and to the further
n6 The Rise of Democracy.
efforts of Mr. Forster, a pupil of Carlyle, which were
crowned with success in 1870.
Not only among- the leaders of thought, but also
among- the more keen-sighted Chartists themselves, lack
of education was felt to be a fruitful cause of disunion.
Dr. Black, the founder of the London Working-men's
Association, had noted their intolerance of opposition,
and had endeavoured by educational agencies to pro-
mote a wider and more tolerant spirit. His pupil Lovett
amidst the schisms of 1839 realized the need of educa-
tion if Chartism was to succeed; and during- the term
of imprisonment which he spent with Collins in War-
wick jail he wrote, with some help from his fellow-
prisoner, a little book, Chartism, which pointed work-
ing-men to popular education as the necessary prepara-
tion for wiser action in the future. Alike spurning
and despairing- of any help from government, Lovett
proposed that the people should educate themselves
by a vast voluntary effort. The subscription of a
penny a week by every one who had signed the
national petition for the Charter would, he affirmed,
yield a fund sufficient to establish 80 "district halls"
and 710 circulating libraries, besides maintaining four
paid Chartist lecturers and distributing 20,000 political
tracts. The proposed education was of course to lead
up to definite political results, by undermining the old
edifice of privilege and rearing on firm foundations the
new structure of democracy. Such was Lovett's new
programme an English and more practical version of
the programme of education and insurrection which
Mazzini had ten years before sketched for his associa-
tion of Young Italy.
Meanwhile other Chartist leaders, while debarred by
prison walls from joining in the disputes of their sub-
alterns, were devising schemes which further divided
their already distracted followers. Henry Vincent, now
The Complete-Suffrage Movement. 117
cured of his physical-force leaning's, saw no hope for
Chartists unless they became teetotallers, whence he
and his followers were dubbed Teetotal Chartists by
Fearg-us O'Connor, and were denounced as trailing- a
red-herring 1 across the path of Radical reform. For the
same cause the Northern Star sneered at Lovett's edu-
cational efforts as "Knowledge Chartism"; while it
reprobated as mere Christian Chartism an interesting
effort of Scottish Radicals to combine political propa-
ganda with religious services in a sort of Labour Church.
All these, O'Connor's newspaper asserted, were middle-
class traps to lead astray the true believers from the
narrow path leading up to the People's Charter. There
was much force in these objections; and had not O'Con-
nor himself commenced to trail red-herrings across the
path, his criticisms would have been fatal to Lovett,
Vincent, and all other rivals. In fact, O'Connor now
held a position of great power. After a brief term of
imprisonment in York Castle, he speedily regained the
popular favour which he had lost by blowing hot and
cold on the subject of the projected popular rising of
November, 1839. The sight of their favourite orator
dressed in a suit of workman's fustian effaced the memory
of his unavailing bluster, and again his fiery force swept
the mass of Radical working-men along in his train.
But while protesting against any deviation from the five
points of the Charter, and their cynosure the Northern
Star, O'Connor was advocating measures which were
equally provocative of discord. He and his numerous
supporters founded a National Charter Association,
including numerous affiliated clubs, for the purpose of
making the Charter the law of the land. But, as no
less an authority than Francis Place pointed out, the
plan of the association violated the old law against
"corresponding societies", which threatened all ad-
herents with transportation. The refusal of many
n8 The Rise of Democracy.
moral -force Chartists to join an illegal association
naturally exposed them to the taunt of cowardice, while
they could retort that the scheme was intended as a
means of ruining- the cause. Another plan of O'Connor
and his associates served still further to disunite the
Radical ranks. This was a "land scheme" for settling
labourers and their families in agricultural communities.
The success which finally attended some of these Char-
tist settlements sufficiently attests the feasibility of the
proposal. But at the outset it was open to the criticism
of being illegal, or at least of not being recognizable at
law, or offering protection to investors. The suspicion
which generally dogs the steps of the popularity-hunter
fastened on this glaring defect in the proposal; and
sinister motives were with much frankness ascribed as
the raison d'etre of the whole scheme. The objection
gained weight from the fact that co-operative associa-
tions were but feebly guarded by law from the frauds
of designing secretaries and treasurers, who not unfre-
quently bolted with all the available cash.
The third cause of schism was the inclusion in the
revised national petition for the Charter of a clause for
the repeal of the union between Great Britain and Ire-
land. Many Chartists, especially those in Scotland, and
the members of Lovett's new National Association,
warmly protested against the intrusion of so alien a
topic into the Chartist programme. Hence the national
petition for the Charter was signed by smaller numbers
in 1842 than in 1839. But there was another reason for
the decline of Chartism which commenced in 1842, and
that was the competition of the Complete- Suffrage
Movement, which will always be associated with the
name of Joseph Sturge.
Joseph Sturge was born in 1793. He came of an old
Quaker family which maintained the tenets and practices
of that benevolent society with the quiet tenacity that
The Complete-Suffrage Movement. 119
has enabled the meek, first to weary out their perse-
cutors, and, in these later times, to inherit the earth.
As a youth of twenty years of age, Joseph had borne
testimony to his horror of all means of compulsion,
especially when designed for warlike ends. When drawn
for the militia, he allowed the sheep of his farm to be
driven off in payment of the fine for refusal to serve.
Turning subsequently to the corn trade, he settled at
Birmingham, where his unswerving integrity and massive
simplicity of character won general respect. After
taking a prominent share in the emancipation movement,
he was drawn more closely into political life by the
Birmingham riots of 1839, when he firmly protested
against the conduct of the London constables and the
proposal of a centralized police force. The contrast
between the sufferings of the masses and the general
apathy of Whigs and Tories served to convince him of
the need for a far completer act of enfranchisement than
that accorded by the measure of 1832. In 1841 he
wrote to Mr. Cobden " I have been driven to the con-
clusion that it is not only hopeless to expect justice for
the labouring population from the representatives of the
present constituencies, but that the infatuated policy
which now guides our rulers will be persisted in until
they plunge millions into want and misery". The "in-
fatuated policy", of course, was the support more or less
completely accorded by both the historic parties to the
corn-laws. But Sturge had in view much more than the
cheapening of bread : he declared that patriotism and
Christianity alike required men to strive by all peaceable
and legitimate means to remove "the enormous evil of
class legislation". As he had striven for the emancipa-
tion of black slaves in our colonies, so now his heart
went out to the white slaves who were at the mercy of
industrial conditions and economic laws that seemed to
be inexorable. But could not the power of the collective
120 The Rise of Democracy.
will mitigate those conditions and deflect those laws?
Above all, did not religious principle require the effort?
" It is a beautiful and distinguishing feature of Christi-
anity (he wrote) that it leads us to recognize every coun-
try as our country, and every man as our brother; and
as there is no moral degradation so awful, no physical
misery so great as that inflicted by personal slavery, I
have felt it my duty to labour for its universal extinction."
His first public avowal of sympathy with the Chartist
demands was at the close of a meeting of the Anti-
Corn-law League held at Manchester in November,
1841, when he invited the delegates to remain behind
for the discussion of a plan of Radical reform, based
on universal suffrage. The keen interest evinced at this
informal meeting proved not only the respect felt for
the proposer, but also the general conviction of the
Free-traders of the need of union with the working-
classes. Hitherto the league had found the opposition
of Chartist working-men to be fully as formidable as
that of landlords and farmers. Countless meetings
had been disturbed or broken up by the champions of
the Charter, who never tired of declaiming against free-
trade as another middle-class trick. In his interesting
Autobiography, Thomas Cooper has recorded the impres-
sion, resulting in his conversion to Chartism, produced
by a Chartist lecturer at Leicester, who thus declaimed
against the Cobdenites "Don't be deceived by the
middle classes again. You helped them to get their
votes. But where are the fine promises they made
you? . . . Municipal reform has been for their benefit,
not for yours ; and so with all their other reforms. And
now they want to get the Corn-laws repealed not for
your benefit, but for their own. 'Cheap bread', they
cry: but they mean 'Low wages'. Don't listen to their
cant and humbug. Stick to your Charter. You are
slaves without your votes."
The Complete-Suffrage Movement. 121
A strict sense of Christian duty and a desire to recon-
cile two important movements, the collisions between
which had been fatal to both, impelled Joseph Sturge to
proceed with his complete-suffrage agitation ; and in the
closing- days of 1841 he and other Cobdenites issued the
programme which marks the first organized attempt to
remove the suspicions and hatred separating the middle
and working classes during the past seven years. If for
no other reason, the work of the Complete -Suffrage
Association, founded at Birmingham early in 1842, de-
serves careful attention. As long as suspicions were
nursed by bourgeois and operatives, their agitations for
cheap bread and the Charter could not gain that irre-
sistible momentum which had carried the Reform Bill
of 1832, and was destined to gain the Reform Act of
1884. Lacking the support of most factory workers,
the Free-traders could hardly hope for success; while
the Chartists, spurning the advice of men of light and
leading, were in danger of following will-o'-the-wisps
into mazes of faction or bottomless bogs of intrigue.
The aim of Joseph Sturge and his associates was to
adopt all the fundamentals of Chartism, while dispens-
ing with compromising leaders and their objectionable
methods. Above all, the claim for universal suffrage
must be based on constitutional grounds, and urged
with reason. Here, indeed, they had a strong case.
Before Sir Robert Peel commenced the much-needed
reform of our finances, a great part of the taxation was
borne by the working-classes in the enhanced price of
the necessaries of life. The Complete -Suffrage Asso-
ciation could therefore urge with much force that a
fundamental principle of our constitution was violated
by the exclusion of a majority of those classes from the
parliamentary franchise. 1 They quoted Blackstone's
1 In a remarkable series of articles in the Nonconformist, which he had
just founded, Mr. Edward Miall dwelt strongly on this very practical griev-
i2 The Rise of Democracy.
assertion that "no subject of England can be constrained
to pay any aids or taxes, even for the defence of the
realm or the support of the government, but such as are
imposed by his own consent or that of his representa-
tives in Parliament". Appealing to this well-known
principle, the new association summoned to Birming-
ham popularly elected delegates to draw up the pro-
gramme. Bourgeois and artisan delegates came in about
equal numbers. During four days they deplored the
mistakes and discords of the past, and finally, with
shouts of joy and tears of emotion, carried proposals
which practically embodied the ( original ) People's
Charter.
For a time the alliance between the Sturgeites and
Chartists seemed to be complete ; and at a by-election at
Nottingham the Quaker advocate of peace and progress
had the embarrassing support of O'Connor's brazen voice
and redoubtable fists. The election was in many ways
remarkable. In the preceding general election of July
1841 one of the successful Whig candidates was known
to have used bribery so wholesale and barefaced that
the mere threat of legal proceedings procured his speedy
retirement in favour of his Tory opponent, Mr. Walter
of the Times. To spoil this game of battledore and
shuttlecock between the two historic parties, the Radicals
put forward Mr. Sturge as candidate. Like a fresh north
wind blowing upon miasma came Sturge's incisive
ance: "The poor are almost wholly unprotected. They are taxed more
heavily than any other class. Law, accessible to others, is of small avail to
them. The fruits of their toil are wrested from them, and industry and skill,
their only property, taken from them to augment the boundless wealth of
the landlords." Miall proposed to exclude from the franchise aliens, minors,
paupers, and all who had been convicted of crime. Referring to the alleged
corruptibility of the masses, he maintained that we never had had an honest
electorate, and that manhood suffrage would make bribery almost impos-
sible ! His attempt to refute the contention that education should precede
the grant of the franchise was equally inconclusive. (See Life of Edward
Miall, ch. 5.)
The Complete -Suffrage Movement. 123
declaration that he would stand for Nottingham pro-
vided that no money was spent and no improper influence
used to bias a single voter in his favour. For the first
time a candidate was bold enough to declare that he
would not spend a sixpence on his election, and would
dispense with banners, processions, personal canvass,
and public-house support. Perhaps the novelty of this
declaration appealed as powerfully as its moral courage
to the popular sympathy, which was strongly evoked.
Thus, when the terrible "Tory lambs" of Nottingham
attempted a rush against the people's favourite, they
were met and routed by a charge of Feargus O'Connor,
Thomas Cooper, and other Chartists, which sent the
Rev. Rayner Stephens in headlong flight from the Tory
hustings. In the end Sturge was defeated by a slender
majority, but an election petition having unseated Mr.
Walter, another complete -suffrage candidate was re-
turned for Nottingham.
Meanwhile in the House of Commons itself events
were happening which favoured the champions of
reform. The disclosures effected by Mr. Roebuck's
"Elections' Compromise Committee" convinced many
members that little was to be hoped from the existing
electoral system.
But the Radical movement, while forging ahead, was
suddenly checked by the terrible strikes of the summer
of 1842. With wheat at sixty-five shillings the quarter,
and work and wages declining, the misery of our
operatives was a direct incentive to violent outbreaks.
The increasing power of the trade-unions determined
the direction of the popular discontent towards strikes,
which spread through the Midlands and North amid
scenes of reckless violence. Originating in some petty
tyrannies of Staffordshire masters, the movement be-
came almost a labour war; and bands of operatives
marched about, compelling mills to stop work, and in
124 The Rise of Democracy.
some cases smashing- the machinery, or pulling the
plugs from reservoirs. In the Potteries, at Stockport,
Blackburn, and Preston, there was serious rioting; and
the physical-force Chartists, with overweening contempt
of the "moral-force humbugs", boasted that, having
stopped every manufactory within fifty miles of Man-
chester, the men were masters of the situation. The
determined action of the authorities, the conciliatory
attitude of several masters, and the ingathering of a
bounteous harvest, served speedily to restore order to
the country, prosperity to trade, and comfort to the
home ; but the work of class reconciliation was seriously
hindered by the plug riots, the consequent arrests, and
the silly charges that the Cobdenites had instigated the
acts of violence.
The results of the breach of confidence were seen in
a conference between the "complete suffragists " and
the Chartists held at Birmingham in Dec. 1842. The
question was now more than ever one of men, not of
measures. Though the programmes were substantially
the same, the differences between tweedledum and
tweedledee were hotly discussed. Even Lovett declared
that he would never surrender the name of the People's
Charter for that of Complete Suffrage; while one of
Sturge's followers excited the wrath of the O'Connorites
by the frank assertion that his party adopted Chartist
principles but objected to Chartist leaders. Eventually
the name of the Charter was retained; whereupon the
Sturgeites withdrew from all association with a political
party led by men, or rather by a man, whom they could
not respect.
Their judgment as to the fate of the party if cham-
pioned by O'Connor was amply justified. Owing to
personal feuds, the remaining Chartist delegates speedily
dwindled from more than three hundred to thirty-seven,
who squabbled about the details of O'Connor's land
The Complete- Suffrage Movement. 125
scheme. The chiefs acrimony towards all who differed
from him found vent in diatribes against his former
devotee, Thomas Cooper, even during the two years'
imprisonment which the Leicester leader suffered for
his share in the recent disturbances. On the whole,
Cooper was the gainer. O'Connor thenceforth lost the
aid of his ablest remaining supporter; while Cooper,
after composing in prison his remarkable poem, the
Purgatory of Suicides, dedicated his great abilities almost
solely to the cause of popular education, sharing with
Henry Vincent the honours of the platform. As these
two men lived mainly on the funds supplied by middle-
class audiences, they were speedily scouted as renegades
by the Chartist irreconcilables, and ceased to take any
very active part in the movement.
Apparently, then, class jealousy was more powerful
than all the efforts at conciliation; and the secret or
openly expressed desires of the working-men levellers
were too strong to admit any thorough co-operation
with middle-class democrats like Joseph Sturge, who
sought parliamentary reform only for the redress of the
more glaring grievances of the age. But his efforts
were not to be fruitless. Soured though they were by
the disappointments of the year, Chartist working-men
could not forget that the olive branch had been held out
by prosperous business men like Sturge, Bright, and
Cobden ; and the reviving trade and prosperity of the
next years reminded all keen-sighted artisans of the
unity of interests which binds together employers and
employed, and of the supreme importance of a just and
wise system of taxation. The lesson was not lost.
While the remaining Chartist leaders were damaging
their cause, the complete-suffrage party also lost ground.
Having failed to unite the artisans and middle classes
in a solid phalanx of reform, the Sturgeites began to be
reabsorbed by the Anti-Corn-law League from which
126 The Rise of Democracy.
they had emerged; and the defeat of Joseph Sturge at
Birmingham in a three-cornered contest decided him to
retire from active political life. His last sixteen years
were unceasingly devoted to the extinction of slavery
and the maintenance of peace principles. But his char-
acter and career told with effect far beyond these two
spheres of work. In an age distracted by fierce class
hatreds and a narrow devotion to the claims of party,
the influence of Joseph Sturge's simple, manly character
was distinctly elevating. His insistence on manhood
suffrage was ever based on an unswerving religious
belief, that only by treating every man as if he possessed
the germs of noble character, could the grand possibilities
of mankind be fitly developed. The intensity of this
faith has inspired the following reference in Whittier's
memorial lines
" Thanks for the good man's beautiful example,
Who in the vilest saw
Some sacred crypt or altar of a temple
Still vocal with God's law".
Joseph Sturge did not live to see even the first instal-
ment of democratic reform. He bequeathed his work
to others, especially to Edward Miall, who up to the
close of a long literary and parliamentary career strug-
gled for complete suffrage on the same lofty principles.
In 1851, when Carlyle's Latter Day Pamphlets gained
a great vogue for the theory that a beneficent des-
potism was the best of all governments, Miall flinched
not from attacking this "philosophy of the stick", even
when wielded by the redoubtable seer of Chelsea. In an
important public lecture he protested against the deter-
mined pessimism which regarded mankind as ever on
the down-grade, unless tugged upwards by some heaven-
sent genius. The need of this, as of all generations,
exclaimed Miall, was not external compulsion, even by
The Complete-Suffrage Movement. 127
a hero, but rather internal improvement. " Heroes are
like stars, brilliant because the heavens are dark. Where
the ' masses ' are themselves enlightened and free, hero-
ism ceases ; and what would have shone forth effulgently
becomes unnoticeable when all around is daylight."
The chief moralizing" influence in the life of a people, as
in that of an individual, was not compulsion, but con-
fidence. A class previously degraded almost to a slave's
moral level could be restored to manliness and integrity
by a bestowal of trust, which always evoked nobler
feelings. As Rugby boys voted it a shame to lie to
Arnold because he utterly trusted them, so the like
feelings would, in course of time, be felt towards a
government which treated its subjects as responsible
citizens. "A higher system of government must be
developed one that relies less on laws and more on
principles, less on force and more on the good-will of
subjects. Safety will be found in the affectionate attach-
ment of contented citizens."
Such was Miall's effective, if not brilliant, reply to
Carlyle's vehement invectives against democracy. For
the present the complete-suffrage movement made little
headway, amid the material prosperity of the fifties and
the distractions caused by the Crimean War and the
Indian Mutiny. But, as will be shown in chapters XI.
and XIII., its aims were gradually to be realized after
the delay which generally overclouds the first roseate
hopes of speedy victory. In the interval an important
work of class reconciliation had been quietly progress-
ing, which, to all but Cassandra seers, robbed reform of
its earlier terrors. That reconciliation dates from the
year 1842, when the work of Joseph Sturge and Edward
Miall, and the material prosperity inaugurated by Sir
Robert Peel's financial reforms, began to assuage the
class hatreds of the past, to close the era of revolu-
tionary tumults, and to usher in a period of prolonged
128 The Rise of Democracy.
and peaceful progress unparalleled in the history of any
nation.
Chapter IX.
Revolution or Evolution?
It would be a refreshing change if some historian,
reluctantly tearing himself away from official reports
and diplomatic intrigues, would endeavour to gauge
the influence of national recreation on national character.
Possibly it is quite as potent as the struggles between
the ins and the outs or the manceuvrings of rival
diplomatists ; for while the Olympians are weaving their
mighty plans, the millions beneath are fashioning their
characters alike in hours of toil and of recreation. The
cafe, therefore, may claim the attention of the historical
student as well as the council-chamber, the restaurant
no less than the august debates of Westminster. How
much of the heaviness of Georgian life, and the conse-
quent stolidity of Georgian politics, was due to the full-
bodied wine of Oporto which every patriotic Briton felt
called upon to imbibe, to the exclusion of the wines of
hostile Gaul, which were accused of promoting fickleness
and instability? Who shall estimate the effect on the
German of his light Rhenish or equally light beer, as
contrasted with that of the heady ale drunk by his island
cousin? What end is there to the social and political
influence of the Continental cafe and the English ale-
house? The potations of the Frenchman and German,
even their quaflfings of coffee Lessing's "dear melan-
choly coffee which begets fancies" so far from besotting
the mind, actually favour the growth of thoughts; and
thought, if it clashes with the actual, is the mother of
revolution. In those countries, therefore, prosperity is
by no means a barrier to discontent, because it tends to
Revolution or Evolution? 129
stimulate the growth of ideas. In England, on the
contrary, it has proved to be an infallible sedative from
the days of Walpole to our own, because the expenditure
of our lower classes then turns largely to a stimulant
which dulls the brain. Who ever heard of any serious
revolt concocted in an English ale-house? Is not that
the abode of political stability, where John Bull, so long
as he has money to spend, is wont to subside into thick-
skinned, fuddled contentment in the best of all possible
worlds?
The conditional clause is important. John Bull money-
less is the most persistent of malcontents, and even
evolves political principles always with an eye to future
business. But when blest with beef and beer, his ideas
are few, his contentment is colossal.
The history of English Radical reform therefore
centres around periods of commercial depression and
general misery, such as mark the almost unbroken series
of lean years succeeding the great war, the sharp pinch
of 1847-1848, the crash of 1866, and the long depression
of trade and agriculture which set in after 1876. In the
prosperous periods we have little to record except the
unheeded utterances of reformers crying in a wilderness
of plenty, or the quiet adoption by Conservatives of
measures which they had previously vetoed as revolu-
tionary. So complete is John Bull's faith in the steady-
ing effect of beef and beer.
The future of Chartism was mainly to be determined
by the economic condition of our working-classes, i.e.
by the general condition of our industries. If these
revived, and, consequently, if comfort replaced misery
in the homes of our operatives, the movement which
threatened to be revolutionary would naturally subside,
remaining merely as a quietly propelling force in the
direction of parliamentary reform. Such was the mo-
mentous "condition-of-England question" which claimed
(M416) I
130 The Rise of Democracy.
the attention of every thinking- man. Above all, Thomas
Carlyle had proved that Chartism was not solely a
political movement, but was quite as much a " knife and
fork question". It had long 1 been obvious that the
popular discontent was due mainly to low wages,
irregular work, and high prices; and some men had
perceived the tolerably obvious connection between bad
trade and the burdens of a stupid system of taxation.
In words which then seemed prophetic, William Cobbett
had foretold that the effect of the awful burdens be-
queathed by the great war would be to accelerate the
march of democracy by arousing indignation against the
policy which, after recklessly amassing the national debt,
allowed it to fetter the limbs of industry. The whole
course of the democratic movement in our land testified
to the accuracy of the surmise ; and it was not until Sir
Robert Peel readjusted the financial burdens that stability
was restored alike to our industries, our society, and our
institutions.
No statesman of this century has exerted so potent
an influence in harmonizing conflicting interests, and in
adapting party methods to new conditions, as Sir Robert
Peel. It was due very largely to his foresight and
common sense that the Tory party in 1841 came back to
power, only nine years after it appeared to have been for
ever extinguished by the first Reform Bill. The very
magnitude of that disaster had enabled Peel to broaden
the basis of the party by insisting that its mission thence-
forth was to rally the newly enfranchised, as far as
possible, to the support of our ancient institutions. His
followers accepted the situation with an adaptability born
of defeat, and enhanced by hope of future recovery ; and
the party which returned to power in 1841 had little in
common with the "ignorant and obstinate faction"
whose approaching overthrow Greville had, ten years
previously, hailed with satisfaction.
Revolution or Evolution? 131
The newly styled Conservative party now dominated
the situation ; but, fortunately for its further usefulness,
Peel dominated the party, thereby continuing the educa-
tional process which his malicious detractor, Disraeli,
was subsequently to carry to unheard-of lengths. Peel's
mental endowments were curiously characteristic of the
sturdy Lancashire stock whence he sprang. The Peels
of Peel Fold, near Bury, were an honoured family of the
yeoman class ; but with all the toughness of the farmer,
the father of the statesman showed keen foresight and
business capacity in mortgaging his estate so as to em-
bark in the more profitable pursuit of calico-printing,
then in the heyday of its early prosperity. This change
from bucolic to mercantile pursuits curiously fore-
shadows the mental and political development of the
son, who was brought by stress of circumstances to
abandon nearly all the tenets of his early days. Begin-
ning his official career as a colleague of the Liverpools
and Castlereaghs, Sir Robert Peel was to end his days
as a convert to the Manchester school. The sincerity of
the change can be questioned only by pessimists, or by
cranks who rate rigid consistency above a nation's
anguish. Peel could resist tenaciously as long as his
political creed was undergirded by conviction ; but, that
gone, the antique framework of his mind gave way be-
neath the first exceptional strain. Even in 1842 Peel was
practically a Free-trader. In his famous budget speech of
that year he admitted the cogency of the arguments for
free exchange, striving, however, to mollify the Tory
squires by declaring that corn was an exception to the
general rule, owing to the danger of national depend-
ence on foreigners for food-supply.
Contenting himself with a reduction of the sliding-scale
duties on corn, he turned his attention to our complex
tariff, which certainly needed attention. It imposed
duties on some 1200 articles a system which was disas-
132 The Rise of Democracy.
trous to the nation's finance, and to the manufacturers and
operatives who formed the backbone of the nation. The
failure of Whig" financiers in 1837-41 to wring sufficient
funds out of a multitude of niggling little customs and
excise duties might well have convinced every observer
that our taxation had been inherently absurd. Readers
of Adam Smith knew that our fiscal system violated his
sound canon of finance, that the best form of taxation
was that which takes from the people as little as possible
over and above what it brings into the public treasury.
The lessons which students learnt from the father of
political economy had been borne in on manufacturers
by enormous stocks of unsaleable goods and on opera-
tives by the bitter experience of an empty larder. In-
deed the Radical clubs notably those of Leeds and
Birmingham had frequently petitioned for the repeal of
all taxes which pressed on the workers. Doubtless
Peel's action in substituting direct for indirect taxation
was dictated rather by regard for the maxims of political
economy than for the demands of Radical clubs; but
the constant preoccupation of his mind with the condi-
tion of our working-classes, which Guizot notes as his
dominant characteristic, may well have strengthened his
determination to recur to the policy adopted with such
wondrous results by the younger Pitt towards the close
of the eighteenth century. His inspiring appeal to the
House to revert to that potent fiscal instrument, the
income-tax, to which their forefathers had "submitted
with buoyant vigour and universal applause when
threatened by the might of revolutionary France ", was
conceived in the happiest spirit of Conservative oratory;
and yet its practical results were to be the gradual un-
dermining of that protective system of which Peel had
been the accredited champion. The imposition of an
income-tax of sevenpence in the , in place of a multi-
tude of customs and excise duties, was soon seen to be
Revolution or Evolution? 133
a most beneficent experiment, restoring order to our
finances and prosperity to our languishing industries
and commerce. After a trial of three years, Peel per-
suaded his party to prolong the experiment for a similar
period; and let in 430 more articles duty free, besides
remitting the imposts on glass, cotton, wool, &c. The
increased prosperity of the country under the new
system had undermined Peel's belief in the expediency
of "protection" in any shape or form; but it was re-
served for the rain-storms of the autumn of 1845 to
inundate the last water-tight compartment of his brain.
When two millions of Irish were in risk of starvation,
he saw it to be not only a folly but a crime to hinder
the importation of cheap corn ; and millions, not only of
Irish, but also of Britons, soon blessed the statesman
who, at the sacrifice of consistency, gave the people
cheap bread. 1
With the details of these important fiscal changes we
are not here concerned, but rather with their results on
the people's welfare, and on that reconciliation between
the middle and lower classes which in 1842 seemed far
distant. After the beginning of the long war with
France the trend of prices had pressed heavily on our
people. In the years 1792-1813 the rise of prices, due
almost entirely to war, had been nearly 70 per cent; and,
despite a slight fall after the peace, the old level had
never been reached. 2
At the risk of repeating what has been previously
stated, a brief review of the operatives' position must
1 In the budget of 1846 Peel also admitted foreign sugar on the same
terms as colonial sugar, abolishing those preferential rates for free-grown
sugar on which the abolitionists had insisted. For an account of the Free
Trade struggle, see Free Trade and its Results, by G. Armitage Smith,
M.A., in this series.
3 Mr. Lowe in his Present State of England (1823) estimates the annual
expenses of a rural labourer's family of 5$ persons as follows: 1792, 27 ;
1813, j 4 8; 1823, 32.
134 The Rise of Democracy.
here be hazarded, if we would understand the magnitude
of the benefits wrought by the change. In the thirty
years succeeding the war, the workmen were victims to
almost every possible adverse circumstance. The factory
system was slowly grinding out hand-labour; and yet
the new wholesale methods could not produce their
natural and ultimately beneficial results of cheapening
commodities, owing to the dearness of raw materials.
The manufacturer, when pressed by foreign competition,
looked to the cheapening of labour as the natural set-
off to the dearness of his raw materials; and the vast
growth of our population gave him almost limitless
opportunities of effecting economies in his human ma-
chinery. The law did not as yet recognize trade-
unions; and the new facilities of migration opened up
by the Poor-law of 1834 and by railways, deluged the
market with unskilled labour. And while wages were
thus depressed with the tacit connivance of the legisla-
ture, the prices of the necessaries of life were raised by
a fiscal system which seemed devised so as to hamper
the energies of the trader and empty the larder of the
poor man. Such was the economic cause of the dis-
content which found vent in Chartism.
The removal of the irritant soon produced the natural
result. With cheap raw materials, and with industry
unhampered by the visits of the excise officer, commerce
began to forge ahead; and manufacturers soon dis-
covered that they reaped from the cheapness of raw
wool and cotton far greater benefit than from low wages,
which impaired the efficiency of the human machinery.
British workmen, however, were benefited not only
by increasing regularity of employment and a gradual
rise in wages, but by the cheapening of many necessaries
of life. The evidence on this subject collected by Mr.
David Chadwick is very striking. From careful in-
quiries made among the operatives of Lancashire, he
Revolution or Evolution? 135
found that the average expenses of a working-man with
a wife and three children were as follows :
1839. 1849. 1859. 1887.
Bread, flour, &c., ... 7/6 5/8 5/4 4/8^
Groceries, 7/9^ 6/1 # 5/11 4/3
Other items, such as butcher's -meat, clothes, and vege-
tables, showed very slight reductions, while rent and milk
increased. 1 But Mr. Chadwick adds his testimony to
those of many others as to the general improvement in the
material condition of operatives not only in Lancashire
but throughout Great Britain. The fact must be ad-
mitted by the most jaundiced croaker, if he will contrast
the present condition of Birmingham, Glasgow, and the
east end of London with that portrayed in the gloomy
pages of Karl Engel's Condition of the Labouring Classes
in England in 1844?
That gifted writer so far underestimated the effects of
Sir Robert Peel's economic reforms as confidently to
prophesy the imminence of a social revolution in Eng-
land. Certainly the outlook was still ominous. The
desperate strikes of 1842 were succeeded in 1844 by a
bitter struggle between masters and men in the northern
colliery districts, which left the men defeated but defiant,
and enrolled 30,000 of them as physical-force Chartists.
The year 1845 brought new troubles. It was the year
of the railway bubble and of the potato famine. Never
since the days of the South Sea Bubble did so much
money change hands on schemes so risky and baseless;
and had all the ^"600,000,000 of proposed capital been
1 For fuller details see Mr. D. Chadwick's papers read to the Statistical
Society in December, 1859, to the British Association in 1861 and in 1887.
He places the average increase of the wages of Lancashire operatives in the
period 1850-1883 as only 10 per cent. Others reckon the increase as 35 per
cent or even more.
2 In the preface to the 1892 edition of this able work, the author, while
still waving the red flag, admits that improvement had taken place, espe-
cially in the east of London,
136 The Rise of Democracy.
really subscribed, the collapse of most of the schemes
would have been a national disaster. As it was, the
for once over-imaginative bourgeoisie sustained terrible
losses; and that too in an autumn when the potato-rot
might have counselled prudence. The locking up of so
much money in railway enterprises, and the purchase
of vast supplies of foreign corn to feed the starving Irish
and make up the deficiency of the British food-supplies,
naturally produced a tightness of money which culmi-
nated in the financial crisis of 1847. Amidst the conse-
quent distress, which though temporary was severe, the
physical-force Chartists had their last chance of effecting
a forcible change in the constitution. The years 1847-48
are therefore of considerable interest. To superficial
observers it seemed that the current was again setting
in towards revolution, as it undoubtedly was on the
Continent. Or was the movement of the waters due
merely to winds which agitated the surface but left the
volume of the current still sweeping forward with un-
impeded force?
Judging from present signs, the United Kingdom was
in a perilous state. Ireland was palpitating with misery
and disaffection. In the general election of August,
1847, advanced Radicals secured several seats, Feargus
O'Connor gaining a conspicuous triumph at Nottingham.
In truth he was now at the height of his popularity,
owing to the successful floating of his land scheme for
the multiplication of cottier properties, and that too in
spite of the determined opposition of Cooper and many
other Chartists. In spite of discords among the leaders,
Chartism seemed to gain power over the unemployed,
even before the dawn of the year of revolutions which
seemed to promise a speedy victory for democracy all
along the line.
Man is a gregarious creature; and even though the
condition of England differed enormously, as will pre-
Revolution or Evolution? 137
sently appear, from that of Italy, France, and Germany,
yet Chartism seemed to gain new aggressive force when
in the early months of 1848 news arrived of the over-
throw of most of the continental dynasties. First in
Sicily, then in other Italian cities oppressed by Austrian
or domestic tyranny, the torch of revolution flared up;
then, speeding over the Alps, it consumed what appeared
to be the most stable dynasty on the Continent, that of
the House of Orleans. In quick succession the flames
burst forth in the chief cities of Germany and Austria,
the famous repressive system of Metternich proving to
be merely a carefully planned " set piece", along which
the democratic powder fizzed and crackled with most
effect wherever the forces of tyranny had seemed to be
most overwhelming. These events naturally produced
a profound effect on English democratic opinion. When
Louis Philippe, King of the French, escaped out of
Paris in a cab; when Metternich, after controlling the
destinies of Central and Southern Europe, was fain to
flee from Vienna in a washerwoman's cart; when Italian
Dukes and German translucencies hastily granted demo-
cratic constitutions, to petition for which had recently
been a sure passport to the dungeon, could not a mon-
ster demonstration of the men of London force the
Charter on a trembling and penitent Parliament? Such
were the illusory hopes which produced the final re-
crudescence of physical-force Chartism and led up to
the fiasco of April 10. In England a cab was to be
the doom, not of the monarch, but of the Chartist
petition.
A kindly Providence hid this issue of events from the
gaze of the enthusiastic Radicals who planned the coer-
cion of Parliament. For a time the agitation proceeded
briskly, vast meetings being held on Blackheath and
Kennington Commons, as also at Peep Green in York-
shire, and at Oldham Edge. Once more a National
138 The Rise of Democracy.
Petition for the People's Charter received myriads of
signatures, with significant hints that it was the last
that would be sent to the House ot Commons as at
present constituted. " If they reject this, we'll go to
work " such was the determination expressed in many
a town. Again delegates were elected to a National
Convention; and this people's parliament, which seemed
to threaten the august body at Westminster, assembled
in London on April 4th, 1848, to plan a vast demonstra-
tion on behalf of the Charter. April loth was the date
fixed for this event "ten days too late" was the sar-
castic comment of Sanders Mackay, who in Kingsley's
immortal story represents the best elements of moral-
force Chartism.
Meanwhile the authorities had not been idle. The
Duke of Wellington, entrusted with the command of
the troops garrisoning London, held large forces in
reserve, while others were massed at the Tower, the
Bank of England, and other points. Keeping most of
the troops out of sight, the authorities depended mainly
on the impression created by an overwhelming force
or special constables, of whom 150,000 or more were
enrolled. Among them was Prince Louis Napoleon,
who, before that mad year had run its course, was to
leap on the shoulders of the French democracy as Prince
President of the French Republic.
In our land the government was strong enough to
resist the forcible encroachments of the mob, or the
insidious assaults of the "heir to the revolution". In
France the Orleans dynasty received no active support
from the middle classes, the upper stratum of which only
enjoyed electoral rights; and it met with a dogged resist-
ance from the artisans, whose claims it had persistently
disregarded. In England, on the other hand, the middle
classes had been pacified by the abolition of the Corn-
laws; and their spokesmen, Cobden and Bright, at the
Revolution or Evolution? 139
last meeting- of the famous League, had expressed not
only their devotion to the crown, but even a mild ap-
proval of the action of the House of Lords in ratifying
the verdict of the House of Commons. "Above all,"
said John Bright, in a passage which evoked loud cheers,
"the people have learned that the way to freedom is
henceforward not through violence and bloodshed." The
working-classes in England had yet one more illustration
of this important truth in the peaceful victory which
crowned the efforts of Mr. Fielden and Lord Shaftesbury
to reduce the hours of factory work to ten a day for
women and young persons a change which was to take
effect on May i, 1848. When two such boons as cheap
bread and shorter hours of labour were peacefully ob-
tained from Parliament, what need was there forcibly to
change its composition? The lessons of the past and
present obviously counselled prudence and patience. To
this cause, and not to any inherent difference in the
nature of the peoples themselves, are we to attribute the
self-restraint of London artisans in 1848, as contrasted
with the vehemence of their brethren in Italy, France,
and Germany. When the more reckless of the Chartists
boasted of the imminent overthrow of the British govern-
ment, they ranted to artisans who were mainly apathetic;
while a sprinkling of zealots, along with hobbledehoys
and thieves, alone cheered for the coming revolution. As
for the threats of French and Irish assistance, nothing
tended more to send sensible workmen to their homes,
and bring into the streets every householder to serve as
a special constable ; so that physical-force Chartism, at
the crisis, found itself confronted by a crushing supe-
riority of force. This was the dominant fact of the
situation on April 10.
Another item in the programme also portended, not
tragedy, but burlesque. Feargus O'Connor, as has been
previously noted, amid all his apparently reckless rhetoric
140 The Rise of Democracy.
about death or glory, took care to intersperse numerous
saving clauses ; and by many of his former partisans he
had already been charged with cowardice for not acting
up to the level of his inflammatory harangues. He could,
however, assert in his own defence that he had never
really advised revolt if it appeared hopeless; and now,
when the government privately intimated that a monster
procession to Westminster would be resisted, he prepared
to cover his retreat by a well-worn device, a display of
oratorical squibs. Conscious of impending failure,
O'Connor and some other prominent delegates, among
whom were Ernest Jones and Julian Harney, stepped
into the triumphal car, which, with another gaily-decked
chariot conveying the monster petition, headed the pro-
cession. Filing along through the city, and over Black-
friars Bridge, the petitioners arrived at Kennington
Common, where O'Connor was called aside and warned
by the commissioner of police that the procession must
not cross Westminster Bridge. Returning to the car,
the perplexed leader harangued the expectant crowd of
some 30,000 persons, who represented the militant demo-
cracy of the metropolis. He informed them that he had
spent six sleepless nights, that his breast was like a coal
of fire, that his land scheme would shower countless
blessings on them, and that he could not spare one man
from the feast. He therefore besought them not to
force a way over Westminster Bridge, but to allow their
executive committee alone to accompany the petition to
Parliament, where he would die upon the floor of the
House, or get them their rights. The surprised crowd,
which had expected to be led by its champion to death
or glory, was cajoled into good-humour by these assur-
ances; and few attempted to force a passage across the
bridge against the truncheons of the constables. The
triumphal cars also remained on the unprivileged shore
of the river, and the giant petition itself was carried in
Revolution or Evolution? 141
a cab to St. Stephens, where it was greeted with shouts
of derisive laughter. Thus did the Chartist "Mountain"
bring forth its mouse.
The ridicule aroused by the tame result of so much
braggadocio was increased when it was found that the
giant petition contained not 5,000,000, but less than
2,000,000 signatures, many of which were palpable
forgeries, such as Flatnose, Punch, Colonel Sibthorpe,
Prince Albert, and Victoria Rex. Failure and ridicule
produced the usual crop of recriminations among the
Chartist leaders, the more determined men, such as
Harney and Ernest Jones, bitterly inveighing against
the cowardice of O'Connor. Amidst these disputes the
National Convention dwindled away; and the relics of
physical-force Chartism were dispersed after two or three
vain attempts at sedition in the summer months, attempts
which had the sole effect of leading to prison those who
had taken too seriously the bluster of the physical-force
leaders.
But for the extraordinary successes of French, Italian,
and German democrats in the spring it is questionable
whether physical-force Chartism would ever have raised
its head in 1848. It was a rather artificial imitation of
the recent demonstrations of continental democrats,
which had terrorized the governments at Naples, Paris,
Berlin, and Vienna. The events of the time served to
reveal to the world the stability of British institutions
as contrasted with the inherent weakness of continental
despotisms. The lesson was well learnt by Englishmen ;
and ultimately it was to bear fruit across the Channel.
Such was the end of the revolutionary stage of English
Radicalism. The imprisonment of its more zealous
advocates at London and in Lancashire, and the pitiful
squabbles of its remaining leaders soon divested the
movement of all practical importance. Instead of fol-
lowing the course of its decline, we may more profitably
143 The Rise of Democracy.
notice the relation of the movement to latter-day Radi-
calism. That veteran champion of financial reform, Mr.
Hume, in May, 1849, started a movement for obtaining
further remissions of taxation for the working-classes; 1
and even O'Connor gave his support to men whom he
had previously denounced as selfish bourgeois.
But Hume was not the first to agitate for a stringently
democratic reform in our taxation. He was anticipated
by William Lovett, who added to his past services to
the working-classes by founding a People's League on
the ruins of physical-force Chartism. Seeing that the
agitation for a drastic electoral reform had fallen into
disrepute, Lovett urged the need of further changes in
taxation. Peel's income-tax had already placed finan-
cial burdens on the broadest and strongest backs. Lovett
proposed entirely to free weak backs from those burdens,
which were to fall exclusively on the wealthy. In the
forefront of its programme the People's League demanded
the complete repeal of all taxes imposed on food and on
the materials or processes of industry. In a word, it
proposed the complete abolition of all indirect taxation,
and the substitution of a direct tax on property, gradu-
ated according to the wealth of the possessor. This, as
far as I have been able to find, is the first appearance of
this demand as a "plank" in the democratic platform.
The claim, it is true, had previously been urged by
Mazzini in his Young Europe Association, and had found
a place among the speculations of that inflexible disciple
of Robespierre, the fanatical young St. Just. But Lovett
was the first to embody it in an English political pro-
gramme. This is not the place to discuss either its
1 On June 31, 1848, Hume also brought forward a motion for household
suffrage, the ballot, triennial Parliaments, and the approximate equalization
of electoral areas to population. He stated that five out of every six adult
males were without votes. The motion was defeated by 351 to 84.
In 1851 Mr. Locke King's motion, the first of the kind, for the assimilation
t>f the borough and county franchise, was defeated by 299 to 83.
Revolution or Evolution? 143
justice or its feasibility. Derived by Mazzini from the
reds of the first French Republic, it remained a mere
opinion, until the success of Peel's experiments in
1842-1848 seems to have impelled Lovett to give it the
first place in the new Radical creed, where it still holds
a prominent place.
Another link connecting 1 Chartism with more recent
developments was the endeavour of O'Connor and some
associates to bring- about a union of various democratic
clubs in the National Charter and Social Reform Union.
The title is significant. It seemed to admit that the
Charter alone could scarcely lead democrats to victory.
The schism caused by the fiasco of April 10, 1848, was
too deep to be healed, unless new sources of enthusiasm
diverted attention from the personal disputes of the past.
O'Connor had always had a leaning towards social ex-
periments, and he now proposed that the new union
should undertake to support the co-operative movements
and similar efforts for the improvement of artisan life.
Had he not been naturally suspected by many genuine
co-operators, possibly the new industrial movement might
have marched hand in hand with reviving Chartism. It
was not to be. The distrust felt in O'Connor was now
redoubled, owing to the failure of his Land Company in
a way which exposed him to merciless charges of dis-
honesty from his former colleagues, Ernest Jones and
Harney. This last blow was fatal alike to his waning
reputation and to his tottering reason. The closing
scenes of the great agitator's life were not devoid of
pathos, as when the cottiers on the Land Company's
estate at O'Connorville presented him an address of
sympathy and thanks for his agrarian efforts ; or when,
at the greeting accorded to Kossuth, the great Hungarian
patriot, in 1851, the still stalwart Irishman ran up to the
illustrious visitor on the platform and wrung his hand
with maudlin effusiveness. Failing in his Land Company,
144 The Rise of Democracy.
losing control over his Northern Star, and bankrupt in
reputation, O'Connor sank to rest in a private lunatic
asylum. The fleeting nature of the popularity which he
had striven to gain and to hold was revealed by two
suggestive facts. A national subscription commenced
by the men of Nottingham realized only ^32 for the man
who, during the first eleven years of the reign, had been
the idol of the populace ; and that once formidable paper,
the Northern Star, after being bought by its former
printers for ,100, forthwith advised Radicals to abandon
the terms Charter and Chartist as " offensive both to
sight and taste ", and to concentrate their efforts on
gaining universal suffrage and the ballot.
The general despair felt by Chartists (except by such
stalwarts as Ernest Jones and Harney), and the collapse
of O'Connor's social programme, left the ground free for
a far healthier influence, that of Maurice, Kingsley, and
the school of Christian socialists. Amidst the excitements
of the spring of 1848, and the disappointments which
ensued, these two earnest leaders, by voice and pen, had
striven to point the way to self-help as a safer, if less
exciting, road than that of blustering demonstrations;
and their manly counsels, reinforced by those of "Tom
Hughes", soon strengthened the hold which co-operation
was gaining over the artisans of the Midlands and the
North. There was indeed every need to encourage and
guide the great co-operative movement, so that it might
realize the highest aims of its founders, who looked not
to thrift alone, but also to the cultivation of the social
virtues, and to the training of that corporate spirit in
which the British workmen were so lamentably deficient.
No thinking man could study the events of 1840-1850
without seeing that the failure of Chartism was due to
the obstinate egotism both of leaders and of the rank
and file. Quot homines tot sententice may be written as
the motto of the movement, especially after each of the
Revolution or Evolution? 145
rebuffs which the agitators encountered. How necessary,
then, for artisans to learn on a smaller scale, and in their
own community, the need of that "give and take", of
that self-restraint and patience in adversity, which lubri-
cates human society, and renders steady progress possible.
Such was, surely, the chief practical lesson interwoven
by Kingsley with the plot of his Chartist novel, Alton
Locke. That there might be no mistake as to his mean-
ing, he pointed his moral by reminding his readers in the
preface to the second edition that democracy meant, not
the rule of mere numbers, but of a people organized in
demoi, in communities ; that is, of a people vitally related
by community of spirit. The rule of mere numbers, he
asserted, would result in that worst of all tyrannies, an
ochlocracy, or mob-rule. His warnings, together with
those of Maurice and Tom Hughes, derived additional
force from their well-known sympathy with many of the
Chartist aims, a sympathy which found expression in
manly words of advice and cheering counsel in meetings,
where rage at past failures seemed to portend final de-
spairing efforts. Thanks to this noble trio, the desultory
efforts of the Chartists were largely absorbed by the
trade -union and co-operative movements, which had
already begun to ameliorate the workmen's position.
In the latter of these, at any rate, they learned something
of that corporate spirit, and of "the obedience and self-
control which it brings ", together with the lesson, so
repugnant to John Bull's individualism, that "only he
who can obey is fit to rule ".
Such is a brief outline of the events determining the
course of democracy in England in the closing years of
the revolutionary period. The agitations which had
burst forth on the Continent in 1789 seemed to be for
ever suppressed by the complete failures of French,
Italian, German, and Hungarian democrats to rear last-
ing political structures in the exciting years 1848-1849.
(M416) K
146 The Rise of Democracy.
The earlier phases of continental democracy undoubtedly
exercised a potent influence on English Radicalism in the
days of Home Tooke and Tom Paine, and later on
imparted to our reform movement of 1830-1832 the 6lan
needful for victory. But since that time the influence of
the Continent on British politics has steadily declined.
The reason is not far to seek. The democratic move-
ments of Italy and Germany, which caused most of the
unrest of the Continent in 1830-1849, while aiming
secondarily at civic rights, were mainly inspired by a
longing for national unity and independence of external
control. They therefore had little in common with
Chartism, which, as we have seen, derived its strength
from distress due to economic causes. English demo-
cracy has necessarily been both insular and practical,
because it has been overshadowed by the sudden growth
of economic problems, unparalleled in the history of the
world. These problems were being in part solved by
factory legislation and fiscal changes at the very time
when national claims produced the political explosions
of 1848 on the Continent. The imitation by Chartists of
continental revolutionary methods was therefore utterly
futile, arraying against them here that force of public
opinion which at Rome, Milan, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna
had enthusiastically greeted the dawn of democracy.
The verdict of posterity, however, will probably award
to Feargus O'Connor and his associates some scanty meed
of praise for unintentionally revealing the strength of
British institutions, when despotism and unbridled demo-
cracy reduced the Continent to a weltering chaos.
Phases of Political Thought. 147
Chapter X.
Phases of Political Thought.
As the biting- winds of spring often render good ser-
vice by checking a premature growth of vegetation, so
the sharp reaction which in and after 1849 blighted the
ardent hopes of democrats, was to be ultimately fruitful
in good. Alike in the United Kingdom and on the
Continent, important divisions in aim and method,
which were not realized amidst the enthusiasm of the
attack, were made patent by the failure to snatch victory
by a coup de main. The disheartened hosts, falling back
in confusion, revised their methods, discarded untrust-
worthy leaders, strove to quicken the popular intelligence,
and sought, when possible, the alliance of monarchs
or statesmen who sympathized with the aspirations of
their peoples. The Cannae of 1848 evidently called for
a Fabian policy of prudence and delay. It was to be
rewarded by signal good fortune, the peoples of Italy
and Germany finding in each case their patriotic king
and statesman ; while in England the cloak of Sir
Robert Peel was to fall on an equally gifted successor.
These are the chief facts in modern democratic develop-
ments, tending not only to assuage revolutionary passion,
but to invigorate and solidify the monarchical principle.
In our own land, the swing of the pendulum, first
towards extreme democracy, and then back towards old
methods of government, was not so violent as on the
Continent, doubtless owing to the long practice of a
great part of our people in representative government,
and the sense of responsibility and moderation which it
develops. Nevertheless, English politics felt not only
the influence of the events of 1848, but also of the re-
actionary period which followed. Indeed, in 1850-1866,
148 The Rise of Democracy.
British democracy relapsed into a condition almost of
torpor when contrasted with the phenomenal activity of
the two preceding decades. So remarkable was the
change that a well-known Liberal statesman exclaimed
in 1858: "The time is coming when we shall have to
advertise for a grievance". The saying betrayed little
foresight; but it illustrates the complacent optimism of
a period dominated by the personality of Palmerston.
How different had been the condition of our life and
thought twenty years previously, when the prevalence of
discontent drew from that typical Tory of the old school,
Lord Eldon, the unparliamentary asseveration, that, if
he had to begin life over again, he would begin as an
agitator! By contrasting the two statements, we may
measure the enormous influence of the work of social
and financial reform carried out in the interval.
There were many influences tending to pacify the
working-classes of Great Britain besides the collapse of
revolutionary efforts in 1848. The gold discoveries of
1849-1851 in California and Australia gave an enormous
impetus to industry and commerce. The iron horse and
the steamship, working in harmonious combination,
were opening up all parts of the world to emigration
with a cheapness and facility never dreamt of in 1837 ;
and every ship-load of emigrants leaving our shores
helped to relieve the pressure of population on congested
districts, and to prepare the way for an economic solu-
tion of the "condition-of-England question". It is true
that the many Chartists, and still more the thousands of
Irish malcontents, who sought homes beyond the seas,
embittered our relations with our colonies, and still more
with the United States. But the discontent at any rate
passed from the sphere of domestic politics to that of
imperial and foreign policy.
Besides this cause of relief to our overwrought social
system, there were the distractions caused by a remark-
Phases of Political Thought. 149
able series of wars and commotions, from the Crimean
War and Indian Mutiny to the great national struggles
of Italy and Germany in 1859-1866, and the complica-
tions resulting" from the American Civil War. Inter
arma silent leges, says the Roman proverb. It holds
good in modern times in more ways than one. A
practical people like the English thinks but of one thing
at a time ; and when public attention was riveted on the
events at Sevastopol or Lucknow, on the tremendous
struggles of North and South, or on the future destinies
of Italy, Prussia, and Austria, little energy was left for
questions of parliamentary reform. The one command-
ing personality in the English politics of that age was
also adverse to any change in the electorate. Lord Pal-
merston used his powers of racy speech and dogged will
to discourage all motions for reform, and diverted public
attention as far as possible to foreign or imperial affairs
and to questions of national defence. From the time of
his famous "Civis Romanus sum" speech in 1850 to his
decease in 1865, foreign politics accordingly held in
popular esteem the position claimed in preceding years
by domestic questions. The alternation of these two
phases of political life has been one of the characteristics
of British development, and will probably recur no less
decisively in the future. Whenever the United King-
dom has fallen into a state of malaise, the electorate has
insisted on the postponement of all save the most press-
ing considerations of colonial and foreign policy. But
when the mitigation of social evils or political discontent
has reinvigorated the life-blood of the empire's heart, a
dilatation or expansion of effort towards the extremities
becomes natural and inevitable. After the exhausting
efforts which culminated at Waterloo, a long period of
torpor in imperial affairs inevitably supervened, until the
recuperative process, wisely directed by Lord Grey and
Sir Robert Peel, enabled the mother of nations to send
150 The Rise of Democracy.
forth her swarms of emigrants to occupy the lands which
the prowess of her warriors or the genius of her engineers
had opened up. The marvellous growth of our colonies
in the new era of commercial expansion awakened both
our own national pride and the jealousies of our rivals,
and thus tended to discredit the views of the "Man-
chester School", which regarded colonies as a burden,
and foreign policy as a delusion and a snare. In truth,
however, both the Cobdens and the Palmerstons exert
a useful influence on a people which seeks to combine
vigour and liberty at home with political and commercial
influence abroad. Without her Cobdens, Peels, and
Gladstones, Great Britain might possibly have degener-
ated into a second Carthage. Without her Pitts, Pal-
merstons, and Beaconsfields, she might have fallen to
the level of the Dutch Netherlands.
Such have been the chief material causes affecting
the ebb and flow of English political life. But a wider
question here meets us. Is there any connection be-
tween the peaceful expansion of the English-speaking
peoples and the political thought of the middle of this
century? It may be of interest to notice certain influ-
ences which the expansion of England has exerted on
contemporary thought both in our own and in other
countries. The marvellous growth of the English-
speaking peoples has been so prominent a feature of
modern life, that it could hardly be overlooked either by
the politicians or thinkers on the Continent. I shall try
to show that the steady growth of British institutions
has helped to divert the attention of political thinkers
from abstract speculation to patent facts, from the draw-
ing up of paper constitutions to a study of the develop-
ment of British institutions and of their famous offshoots
in the New World.
A century had elapsed since Montesquieu had extolled
our system of balance of political powers as combining
Phases of Political Thought. 151
the peculiar excellences of monarchy, aristocracy, and
democracy in a compromise which possessed the
elements of stability. This balance of powers in our
constitution was, it is true, vanishing- under the en-
croachments of the people's House on the prerogatives
of the Crown and the House of Lords. But, it might
be argued, these changes in our political customs and
procedure were, after all, only the legal recognition of
changes which had occurred, and were still occurring, in
the life of the people. They served to register the stages
of transition from the monarchical and feudal times to
the present industrial age, which endows the many with
an overwhelming importance. The Act of 1832 and
subsequent legislation, when viewed in relation to the
momentous developments of the nation's life, proved
that the English constitution was, what it had always
been, an organic growth vitally related to the body
politic, and therefore necessarily expanding in the direc-
tion indicated by the most vigorous growth.
But besides possessing this feature of interest, our
institutions claimed the study of political thinkers on yet
wider grounds. The development of the English race
beyond the seas was to demonstrate the marvellous
adaptability of our methods of government to widely
diverse conditions. Whatever may be urged as to the
many differences between the constitution of the United
States and that of the mother country, there can be little
doubt as to the British origin of most of the provisions
of that famous federal compact. It was this democratic
offshoot of British constitutional life, applied to a number
of self-governing communities, which engaged the ear-
nest attention of that brilliant French thinker, de Tocque-
ville. His great work, Democracy in America (1835),
was destined, as we shall presently see, to exert a
salutary influence on political thought in Europe ; and
on no leader of public opinion was the impress of his
152 The Rise of Democracy.
vigorous mind stamped more clearly than on John Stuart
Mill, who justly calls him the Montesquieu of the age.
In truth, de Tocqueville's great work tended to recall
political thought from the sphere of abstract speculation,
in which it had aimlessly careered since the advent of
Rousseau, to a careful use of the comparative method
in which the earlier French thinker had excelled. Ob-
servation, comparison, and analysis of existing institu-
tions have tended since de Tocqueville's day to resume
their rightful ascendency in political thought.
Another testimony to the vitality of the English con-
stitution was seen in its adaptation to the needs of the
two discordant provinces of Canada. After the revolts
of 1837 a careful inquiry was made into the conditions
of political life in Upper and Lower Canada. As a
result, the Canada Act of 1840 granted full constitutional
rights to these provinces, which were thenceforth united
for all save local requirements, the governor appointed
by the Crown continuing to discharge all, and more than
all, the functions wielded by the sovereign at home.
The almost complete success of this experiment afforded
indisputable proof of the surprising pliability of our
institutions, and tended still further to give a practical
turn to the political thought of the age.
Not only practical men like the Piedmontese states-
man Cavour, but the foremost political thinkers of
Europe, were now convinced that if representative
government was to be securely gained by continental
peoples, it must be of a character somewhat akin to that
of England. In brief, the democratic ideals of Rousseau
or of Bentham gave place to those of de Tocqueville and
John Stuart Mill.
Even before the failure of revolutionary methods in
1848-49, there had been noticeable a certain hesitation
in the utterances even of ardent reformers. Was demo-
cracy the true solution of all difficulties besetting the
Phases of Political Thought. 153
political relations of mankind? Was it the summum
bonum of all public effort? And if so, were the people
endowed with the qualities necessary to its successful
working-? Such doubts had scarcely ever troubled the
minds of its first champions. They are the common-
places of all works written since 1830 by open-minded
observers, except those of the lone-brooding- seer, Maz-
zini, and of the diminishing- band of disciples who were
still entranced by the vision of Young- Italy and Young
Europe. The Mazzinians remained as almost the sole
witnesses to the unquestioning- faith of the earlier gener-
ation, when Rousseau assumed as an indisputable fact
the equality of man and the supremacy and infallibility
of the general will.
The contrast between the earlier age and the middle
and latter part of this century is so marked, that a few
suggestions seem to be called for as to the trend of
thought from the days of Rousseau, the unconscious
precursor of revolutionary thought, down to the time
of Mill and Darwin. Nothing can be more absolute
than the dogmatism with which Rousseau builds up his
ideal democratic system. The people, having agreed
by a solemn social compact to form a community for
purposes of mutual defence, support, and advancement,
forthwith create a state, wherein the general will, as
declared directly by the people itself, without the inter-
vention of representatives, is paramount. Such a com-
munity or state having been formed by the writer with
idyllic ease, Rousseau next deduces the attributes of the
general will. Arguing with fallacious facility from adjec-
tive to adjective, he proves that as the will is general
it must also be inalienable, indivisible, incorruptible,
unrepresentable, and indestructible. 1 Such an argument
would of itself inspire distrust in the present age of dis-
1 Rousseau, Le Contrat Social (1774), bk. ii. An English edition has
recently been edited by Mr. Tozer, with introduction.
154 The Rise of Democracy.
illusionment ; but the literary skill of the writer and the
symmetry of his completed system constituted at once
the charm and the danger of the new political evangel
to the men of 1789 in France, and even to the more
practical Home Tookes and Tom Paines on this side
of the Channel. And all this, it should be observed,
was derived by verbal legerdemain from the first postu-
late of Rousseau's political geometry, the assumed social
contract, from which our own thinker, Hobbes, had de-
duced the justice and necessity of an absolute monarchy.
What wonder that Burke called Rousseau's book, and
the resulting declaration of the rights of man of 1789,
"chaff and rags and paltry blurred sheets of paper
about the rights of man"! A dreary, bloody interval
was, however, to elapse before thinkers ceased to delude
mankind by their logical Utopias, and, returning to
solid fact, recognized that politics was an experimental
science.
The conviction of the absolute truth of the democratic
creed and of its superiority to all other theories of
government was asserted with undiminished fervour by
another great political thinker of that age, Jeremy Ben-
tham. Approaching his subject by methods of inquiry,
based on a careful analysis of forms of government and
of the motives of human action, the Englishman never-
theless arrived at conclusions well-nigh as sweeping as
those of Rousseau. 1 Scorning the system of checks
and balances which endeared the British constitution
to Montesquieu, Bentham advocated an unbridled demo-
cracy. The monarchy and the House of Lords were
therefore to vanish, yielding their powers to a House
of Commons elected by universal suffrage, which was
to enforce absolutely the will of the majority not only
in legislation but by the most complete and exacting
control over the executive departments of government.
1 See cb. ii. of this work.
Phases of Political Thought. 155
"He exhausted" (says John Stuart Mill 1 ) "all the
resources of ingenuity in devising- means for riveting
the yoke of public opinion closer and closer round the
necks of all public functionaries, and excluding- every
possibility of the slightest or most temporary influence
either by a minority or by the functionary's own notions
of right." To such a length did Bentham's enthusiasm
for utility carry him in the very natural disgust at the
sordid Whig oligarchy of the times of Walpole and the
Pelhams and the monarchical state-craft of George III.
The arbitrariness of the new democratic government is
not the only noticeable feature in Bentham's scheme.
Equally remarkable is the baldness and rigidity of its
presentment. The utilitarian philosopher urged his
claims with complete disregard of historical associations
and human sentiment. Great, indeed, must have been
the potential vigour of his leading ideas to have made
many converts, when set forth in a garb so unattractive
and even repellent. "Victorious analysis" menaced
mankind with a form of democracy which would have
merited Burke's crushing criticism, a "multiplied ty-
ranny". We seem to picture Bentham's triumphant
democracy as reducing the world to a state resembling
that described by astronomers, when our planet was a
cheerless expanse of waters sweeping in tidal waves that
were checked and diverted by no friendly continents.
Such would be the flux and reflux of Bentham's all-
dominating democratic opinion.
The experience of the successive spasms of revolution
in 1789-1799, the return to a military despotism under
the great Napoleon, and the failure of the French Re-
volution of 1830, discredited the rigid systems of Rous-
seau and Bentham. Talleyrand's mot on taking the
oath to the constitution of 1830 " It is the thirteenth"
may serve as epitaph to the earlier generation of
1 J. S. Mill, Essay on Bentham,
156 The Rise of Democracy.
constitution builders. In their place came leaders of a
more practical turn of mind, inspired with a distrust of
constitutions based on abstract reasoning, and with a
deepening desire to seek some foundation in fact, some
compromise with the actual.
The failure of the philosophic constitution builders on
the Continent of Europe, and the success attending the
development of British methods of government, are the
dominant facts in the history of modern politics. Their
results on political thought have been considerable.
Thenceforth nearly all inquirers into political science
have been content to abandon all efforts to deduce
results from first principles. They have generally sat-
isfied themselves with a humbler but assuredly safer
method, namely, the collection of facts relating to man's
life and conduct as an individual and in a community,
and have striven by a comparison of these data to arrive
at conclusions which may be regarded provisionally
as working hypotheses. The reason for this change
of attitude is obvious. The schools of Rousseau and
Bentham had not understood the full complexity of
the problem which they attempted to solve. They un-
derstood neither man as an individual nor human
society. Their data being imperfect, their conclusions
were bound to be faulty and one-sided. The work of
their successors has therefore been to make good the
gaps, to study man and society in the light of the investi-
gations of natural science, and to endeavour to correlate
the immense mass of facts brought to light by the biolo-
gist, the economist, and the scientific school of historians.
We are still in the midst of this phase ; and it therefore
behoves students of political science still to adhere to
the comparative and inductive methods of de Tocque-
ville.
Space will not permit of any notice of de Tocque-
ville's work. Its chief importance for us here is that it
Phases of Political Thought. 157
exercised a great influence on one of the keenest of
English political thinkers, John Stuart Mill. Reared by
his father, James Mill, in an atmosphere saturated with
exact knowledge, he learnt from de Tocqueville the
limits to the operation of logic on man's social and
political relations. He ceased to be a mere Benthamite,
a "mere reasoning machine". 1 He no longer regarded
happiness as the sole aim of human society, utility as
the only test of legislation, or the rule of the majority as
the sine qua non of civic life. De Tocqueville's book
proved to his keen and receptive mind the superiority of
the historical and comparative method in politics over
that of argument from first principles. It taught him
how to trace back both the excellences and defects of
American life to democratic institutions. Democracy
thenceforth ceased to be to him the absolute and un-
questionable truth of man's public life. He now regarded
it as a method of government, desirable on the whole,
liable to grave abuse in some respects, and clearly open
to many improvements.
Perhaps the contrast between the earlier and later
phases of democratic thought will be best realized if we
place side by side some characteristic utterances of the
earlier and later phases of John Stuart Mill's career.
The first passage represents the rigid methods of his
father James Mill, a firm Benthamite, who regarded
politics as a purely deductive science analogous to
geometry. Its postulates and axioms being granted,
the science of politics could be constructed as symmetri-
cally as that of geometry, and could be proved to lead
to the adoption of the will of the majority. The most
perfect political system, accordingly, was that which
would infallibly ensure this result. A convinced Ben-
thamite like James Mill entertained as little doubt about
the practical side of government as he did concerning
1 J. S. Mill's Autobiography, ch. 4 [p. 109, ist edit.]
158 The Rise of Democracy.
its principles. John Stuart Mill in his Autobiography
states that his father had ' ' an almost unbounded con-
fidence in the efficacy of two things: representative
government, and complete freedom of discussion. . . He
felt as if all would be gained if the whole population
were taught to read, if all sorts of opinions were allowed
to be addressed to them in word and in writing, and if
by means of the suffrage they could nominate a legisla-
ture to give effect to the opinions they adopted. He
thought that when the legislature no longer represented
a class interest it would aim at the general interest,
honestly and with adequate wisdom; since the people
would be sufficiently under the guidance of educated in-
telligence to make in general a good choice of persons
to represent them ; and having done so, to leave to those
whom they chose a liberal discretion."
Various circumstances concurred to shake the son's
faith in his father's creed. Macaulay's keen criticism
of James Mill's Essay on Government convinced John
Stuart Mill that his father's system was founded on too
narrow a basis, since it ignored several essential factors.
With his usual openness of mind, he revised his views
on politics, no longer looking on representative demo-
cracy as an "essential principle", but "as a question of
time, place, and circumstance"; and though he still
cherished his former political belief, he thenceforth re-
garded "the choice of political institutions as a moral
and educational question", &c. The very moderate
success which the Reform Bill of 1832 attained was
another disappointment; but more important was the
impression produced on the young thinker by de Tocque-
ville's Democracy in America, which led to a shifting of
his political ideal from pure democracy to that modified
form of it set forth in his later works. 1
The reasons for this toning down of his democratic
1 Autobiography, p. 191, ist edit.
Phases of Political Thought. 159
ardour are set forth in many of his writings after 1835;
but perhaps in none so clearly and emphatically as in
his Essay on Bentham (1838). After awarding" due praise
to his early master, he points out the chief practical
defect in his political science. Bentham neglected to
assign proper importance to differences of national
character as determined by past history and habits of
thought. But, besides this very obvious criticism, Mill
urges one which is fundamental. He boldly challenges
Bentham's assertion that the will of the majority must
under all conditions be paramount : " Is it, at all
times and places, good for mankind to be under the
absolute authority of the majority of themselves? . . .
Is it the proper condition of man in all ages and nations,
to be under the despotism of Public Opinion?" Here
we notice a mental attitude totally distinct from the
unswerving faith of Mill's early years. The principle of
' 'the greatest happiness of the greatest number" is
also attacked, partly because, as Mill elsewhere says,
happiness is too complex a state of mind and body to
serve as a satisfactory goal of human strivings; but
chiefly because the rule of the majority alone will not
necessarily lead to the best obtainable results. He
frankly admits that an absolute democracy might tend
not to level up mankind, but to level it down. He points
out that the majority of mankind must always be un-
skilled manual labourers, and that the rule of such a
majority might tend "to make one narrow mean type
of human nature universal and perpetual, and to crush
every influence which tends to the further improvement
of man's intellectual and moral nature. There must, we
know, be some paramount power in society; and that
the majority should be that power, is on the whole right,
not as being just in itself, but as being less unjust than
any other footing on which the matter can be placed.
But it is necessary that the institutions of society should
160 The Rise of Democracy.
make provision for keeping up, in some form or other,
as a corrective to partial views, and a shelter for freedom
of thought and individuality of character, a perpetual
and standing Opposition to the will of the majority. . .
A centre of resistance round which all the moral and
social elements which the ruling power views with dis-
favour may cluster, and behind whose bulwarks they
may find shelter from the attempts of that power to hunt
them out of existence, is as necessary where the opinion
of the majority is sovereign, as where the ruling power
is a hierarchy or an aristocracy. Where no such point
d'appui exists, there the human race will inevitably de-
generate; and the question whether the United States,
for instance, will in time sink into another China (also a
most commercial and industrious nation) resolves itself,
to us, into the question whether such a centre of resist-
ance will gradually evolve itself, or not."
In this remarkable pronouncement the reaction from
Bentham to de Tocqueville is everywhere conspicuous.
The age of faith has vanished: that of criticism has
dawned. If such was the case with so utilitarian a
Radical as John Stuart Mill, it is not surprising that
after the almost ludicrous collapse of democratic efforts
in 1848, unbelievers like Thomas Carlyle should pro-
claim that democracy was a self-cancelling process,
leading to anarchy "happy if it be anarchy plus a
street constable "- 1 As the later political utterances of
Carlyle were destined to have little more than rhapsodic
interest, we may be pardoned for omitting any reference
to them here, especially as their contradiction by the
complete - suffrage party has been noticed in chapter
VIII. It will be of more practical importance to trace
the further development of Mill's views on the subject of
safeguarding the rights of the minority under a demo-
cratic government.
1 Carlyle, Latter Day Pamphlets, No. i (1850).
Phases of Political Thought. 161
These views took definite shape in his work, Con-
siderations on Representative Government (1861), wherein
his objections to the absolute rule of a majority lead
to some practical suggestions. After asserting- that
representation in proportion to numbers is the first
principle of democracy, he devotes nearly a whole chap-
ter to a review of various contrivances for safeguarding
the rights of the minority, without which, he asserts,
there can be no true democracy. Despite his admira-
tion for the political spirit animating the people of the
United States, Mill condemns their constitution as " a
false democracy, which instead of giving representation
to all, gives it only to the local majorities ".
Mill here cites what is perhaps the extreme case of
government by local majorities; for in the election of
the Senate the majorities gained in States, which differ
vastly in population and importance, determine the com-
position of the august body which guards the federal
compact. Over against this striking instance of what
we may term federalized democracy the great philo-
sopher places a system of proportional representation
which, he claims, would not only save the minority
from temporary political extinction, but would ensure
the election of the wisest and best. He accords the
highest praise to a work of Mr. Hare on The Election
of Representatives (1859) as being "almost a specific"
against the evils incidental to local representation. He
welcomed Mr. Hare's plan of proportional representation
for two reasons : first, as providing a far more accurate
gauge of public opinion; and secondly, as being likely
to result in the election of more intelligent members of
Parliament. Before noticing the general details of Mr.
Hare's plan, a word or two may not be out of place
respecting the evils which it was devised to cure. The
chief defect of the existing system was the predominance
at election times of local over national interests. Wire-
(H416) L
162 The Rise of Democracy.
pullers sought, not for the ablest candidate, but for
one who would do well for the town or district. Petty
interests therefore usurped the place which ought to be
occupied by national concerns; so that members were
too often chosen, not for their ability on questions of
national and imperial import, but because of their suc-
cessful catering- for the interests of gas and water com-
panies, or their liberal donations to the local infirmary.
It must be confessed that there is great force in this
objection. The result is seen in the strength of what
may be called the parochial spirit in a Parliament which
controls the destinies of a world-wide empire. Even so
complacent a Whig as Mr. Bagehot admitted the "opu-
lent profusion of dulness" in the Parliament of Lord
Palmerston's day; and it may not unfairly be attributed
to the bewilderment of the parochial intellect when sud-
denly confronted with complex international questions.
With a characteristic blending of acuteness and irony,
of large-hearted hope and almost cynical scepticism,
Mill noted that "the tendency of representative govern-
ment, as of modern civilization, is towards collective
mediocrity, and this tendency is increased by all reduc-
tions and extensions of the franchise ". How much
more necessary, then, that this defect of a democratic
age should not be exaggerated by a faulty system
of parliamentary election, but should to some extent
be cured by the legislation of the wisest and best. 1
Such a result would be secured, so Hare and Mill con-
tended, by substituting national for local election.
According to this plan, the whole body of electors
would be divided by the number of members to be
returned at that time 658; and the resulting quotient
would determine the number of votes needed for actual
election of any one member to Parliament, though the
1 Compare Mazzini's definition of democracy, "The progress of all,
through all, under the lead of the wisest and best ".
Phases of Political Thought. 163
votes so given would be wholly irrespective of locality.
A voter would, on this plan, be able to record his vote
for any candidate in any part of the kingdom. His vote
would only be counted for one candidate ; but he could
add other names, in order of preference, and if the
object of his first choice was not successful through not
obtaining the requisite number of votes, still his vote
would not be thrown away, but would probably aid the
return of some member. To prevent very popular can-
didates from engrossing nearly all the votes, any one of
them was to be credited only with so many as were
requisite to secure his return; the remainder of those
who voted for him would have their votes counted for
the next candidates on their respective lists.
Without entering into further details of this interesting
proposal, it is evidently open to very grave objections
on the score of its complexity, at least for an unintel-
ligent electorate; besides which the great clerical labour
involved would expose it to risks of inaccuracy where
so vast a number of votes had to be assessed. It is
true, as is claimed by Mr. Hare in the Appendices to
his third edition, that the elections to the Danish
Rigsrad, or Supreme Legislative Council, had been since
1855 conducted on a somewhat similar system, and
apparently with success. But it is hazardous to argue
from the case of a small kingdom with an homogeneous
population to a society so varied in race, interests, and
intelligence as that of the United Kingdom. It may
be granted, however, that proportionate representation
is the ideal towards which democracy should strive.
The method is logically perfect, it imposes on voters
the need of an intelligent survey of national questions
and of the record of other than local politicians, and
above all it frees the election of the nation's represen-
tatives from those petty parochial concerns which at
present warp and complicate the main issues.
164 The Rise of Democracy.
I propose to notice only a few other of the suggestions
contained in Mill's Representative Government, namely
those which have an intimate relation with practical
politics, and which serve to connect the thought of his
day with the Reform Bills of 1860-1867. In his chapter
on the extension of the suffrage he again expresses his
distrust of a form of democracy determined solely by
local elections a "false democracy" he calls it, in
which the minority would have no appropriate influence.
He cherished a deep-rooted apprehension that the rule
of the many would be a vulgar and sordid tyranny fatal
to intelligence and all forms of individual excellence,
and the utmost he would concede was that he would
" not despair of the operation even of equal and
universal suffrage, if made real by the proportional
representation of all minorities, on Mr. Hare's prin-
ciple". But even when this ideal plan of voting is
postulated, Mill also claims that there shall be some
other safeguards to intelligence and wealth against the
levelling-down tendencies which he associates with the
rule of a mere majority. These safeguards are to con-
sist in the exclusion from the electorate of all who do
not pay taxes to the state, of all paupers, bankrupts,
and illiterate persons. He justifies the exclusion of the
first two classes on the ground that only those who
have some pecuniary interest in the state can curb the
lavish expenditure prevalent, for example, in American
municipal affairs, and resulting from manhood suffrage.
The exclusion of illiterate persons he also claims as
necessary to the intelligent conduct of public affairs and
a tribute to the superiority of knowledge over ignorance.
With this plea, again, it is impossible to avoid sympathy ;
and it yet remains to be seen whether the enfranchise-
ment of a large number of illiterates is not a danger not
only to the stability but even to the liberties of the
community; for it is just these who are most open, not
Phases of Political Thought. 165
only to the arts of the demagogue, but to the bribes of
the wealthy and of their parasites. Yet, while granting
Mill's main contention, it is difficult to take quite
seriously his suggestion that qualification for a vote
should be withheld unless the claimant " should, in the
presence of the registrar, copy a sentence from an Eng-
lish book, and perform a sum in the rule of three ".
Those who echo John Bright's off-hand criticism of
Disraeli's Reform Bill and its "fancy franchises", may
be asked to remember that some of these very franchises
were proposed by John Stuart Mill himself. In the
chapter from which I have quoted, the philosopher
claimed the right of plurality of votes, not on the ground
of wealth, which he rightly held to be a most undesir-
able test of personal capacity, but by virtue of the dis-
charge of difficult and responsible duties which demand
skill, foresight, and intelligence. Two or three votes
apiece should accordingly, he claims, be awarded to
every master manufacturer, merchant, banker, or gradu-
ate of a university, in fact to everyone who might be
expected to be by calling or by education more intelligent
than the average man. Wisely refraining from descend-
ing to details on these topics, Mill contented himself with
enunciating the principle that competence in business or
high mental endowments should find adequate recog-
nition in the most important of all civic functions, the
discharge of electoral duty. To those who gibe at the
proposal as academic, it may suffice to reply that the
sneer will be justified when democracy of the present
type has justified its existence for more than a genera-
tion. At present its trial has scarcely commenced. In
the history of peoples and institutions, even a century
would be scarcely a sufficient space to justify the boast
of latter-day prophets, that democracy of the " one man
one vote " type is the final stage of human development.
Quitting the unpractical sphere of prophecy, it will be
166 The Rise of Democracy.
more fitting- to notice another important development in
the scientific, and ultimately in the political thought of
our age. The most fertile idea of the century assumed
definite form when Darwin in 1859 published his famous
work, The Origin of Species. It is true that the doctrine
of evolution had been foreshadowed by previous writers
both in the domains of natural and of social science;
but Darwin's statement in successive works ensured for
it an immense vogue and a triumphant justification.
Into the political questions raised by Darwin's theories
it is neither possible nor desirable to enter at any length.
Their influence has been both to extend and complicate
the issues which were prominent in the previous genera-
tion. Then controversy raged mostly on the question
of natural rights, especially those of the individual to a
share in the government. Now the contest is between
those who would strengthen and those who would
minimize the authority of the state in its dealings with
the individual, especially in regard to private ownership,
the claims of companies, and economic or social ques-
tions arising therefrom. Indeed, owing to the growth
of industrialism, and the extended survey over human
relations which has resulted from the researches of
Darwin and Herbert Spencer, political discussions are
no longer limited to the narrow channel of "natural
right ", but tend to merge themselves in an illimitable
sea of social and economic inquiry.
One practical result of the theory of evolution may,
however, be noted here. On all thinking men, and
indirectly through them on the unthinking 1 , it has exer-
cised a most important influence in exposing" the folly
both of immobility and of sudden and reckless change
in the political world. It depicts human life and society
as an orderly development, proceeding not by leaps and
bounds, still less with long spells of absolute torpor, but
on principles of growth determined by the nature of
The Reform Bills of 1866-1867. 167
human society and of its environment. The study of
man, of his past efforts, even of his failures in politics
and social life, is therefore one essential to any intelligent
forecast of his future; for the institutions and laws
which embody the wisdom of his forefathers are, so
to speak, the political environment which moulds his
action, arouses his antipathies, or wings his aspirations.
A close and reverent study of the past has therefore
become more than ever necessary to the politician who
would rise above the level of Little Peddlington. Such
a study reveals at once the need of adapting old institu-
tions to new needs, and the folly of heedlessly stripping
off from the body politic customs which have shaped
its growth. In brief, Darwinism has extinguished the
Toryism of pre-reform days, and has all but banished
from our political life the abolitionist mania of the suc-
ceeding generation.
Chapter XI.
The Reform Bills of 1866-1867,
We have now considered the causes, both in the
world of fact and in the sphere of thought, which led
to a sifting of the earlier democratic creed, the rejection
of its more sweeping demands, and the postponement of
any effective agitation on the whole question. The epoch
1850-1866 may perhaps best be described by a reference
to the terms used by the followers of the French thinker
St. Simon. They called certain eras in history organic
when a people or a creed expanded by its sheer vitality
and force; but when the time of unconscious or inevit-
able expansion was succeeded by one of discussion and
unrest, they applied to this new age the term critical.
Now, this latter epithet may be applied to the years
168 The Rise of Democracy.
1850-1866, in regard to constitutional reform; while,
on the whole, the epoch which succeeded, especially the
years 1867-1873 and 1880-1885, may be described as
organic in relation to democracy. Not that these epithets
sum up all the characteristics of the periods to which we
apply them ; but they may serve as convenient mental
labels, summing up our general impressions as to the
flux and reflux of the Euripus of our modern political
life, in which the eddies and swirls become ever more
perplexing. The most casual glance over our party
history will convince the observer that the labels critical
and organic, as applied to epochs, are not wholly accu-
rate, still less mutually exclusive. In the period 1851-
1866 many proposals for electoral reform were brought
forward. But then they all failed : and the charac-
teristic of an "organic" period is the apparently irresist-
ible nature of its expansion. More important is it to
notice that, even in this time of sifting of opinions, two
noteworthy gains were effected for the proletariate. One
facilitated the enlightenment of public opinion : the other
opened the doors of the House of Commons to merit
irrespective of property.
The former of these movements, that for the removal
of the remaining "taxes on knowledge", may be con-
sidered as a natural sequel to the efforts of 1836, and
attained a successful issue in 1855 and I86I. 1 The
repeal of the paper duty in 1861 was rendered memorable
by the last serious struggle which has occurred between
the Lords and Commons on a financial question. The
government bill of 1860, which proposed the abolition
of the paper duty, had passed its third reading in the
Commons by the narrow majority of 219 to 210. This
apparently emboldened the Lords to reject the measure,
x For further details on this subject see The Life of John Bright, by C. A.
Vince, M.A., in this series. It shows the great influence of John Bright on
the political developments of his time.
The Reform Bills of 1866-1867. 169
which was in effect, though not in form, a money bill.
Technically, no doubt, this vote of the Lords was not a
contravention of the constitution ; but, as was privately
pointed out by Lord John Russell to his phlegmatic chief,
Palmerston, "the exercise of a right which has lain
dormant since the Revolution (of 1688) must give a great
shock to the constitution ". However much the premier
desired to hush up the imminent dispute between the
two Houses, he was pushed on, not only by Lord John
Russell, but by a far more vehement personality. Mr.
Gladstone was the most famous of the group of " Peel-
ites" who had recently rallied to the Liberal cause.
Devotion to Free-trade principles and to the Italian
cause, which the Palmerston cabinet championed, had
at last led the former " hope of the Conservative party"
into the Whig camp ; and he was now chancellor of the
exchequer. The vote of the Lords on a financial ques-
tion touched Mr. Gladstone in one of his tenderest points;
and he fired off a "magnificently mad speech on the
privilege question". 1 For a time it seemed doubtful
whether Palmerston would throw down the gauntlet to
the Lords or accept Mr. Gladstone's resignation. As
Mr. Gladstone was a necessity, the gauntlet was thrown
down. Under the plea of maintaining their privileges
on money questions, the government passed resolutions
safeguarding similar proposals for the future; and by
including their financial scheme in one very compre-
hensive bill, carried their resolutions as regards the
paper duty (1861). This solution of the question is
interesting, not only as marking the legal ratification of
what had been only a prescriptive right of the Lower
House, but also as illustrating the speedy development
of democratic principles in Mr. Gladstone's nature.
The other question which calls for brief notice is the
1 The expression was Earl Russell's. Life of Lord John Russell, by S.
Walpole, vol. ii. p. 344.
168 The Rise of Democracy.
1850-1866, in regard to constitutional reform; while,
on the whole, the epoch which succeeded, especially the
years 1867-1873 and 1880-1885, may be described as
organic in relation to democracy. Not that these epithets
sum up all the characteristics of the periods to which we
apply them ; but they may serve as convenient mental
labels, summing up our general impressions as to the
flux and reflux of the Euripus of our modern political
life, in which the eddies and swirls become ever more
perplexing. The most casual glance over our party
history will convince the observer that the labels critical
and organic, as applied to epochs, are not wholly accu-
rate, still less mutually exclusive. In the period 1851-
1866 many proposals for electoral reform were brought
forward. But then they all failed : and the charac-
teristic of an "organic" period is the apparently irresist-
ible nature of its expansion. More important is it to
notice that, even in this time of sifting of opinions, two
noteworthy gains were effected for the proletariate. One
facilitated the enlightenment of public opinion : the other
opened the doors of the House of Commons to merit
irrespective of property.
The former of these movements, that for the removal
of the remaining "taxes on knowledge", may be con-
sidered as a natural sequel to the efforts of 1836, and
attained a successful issue in 1855 and I86:. 1 The
repeal of the paper duty in 1861 was rendered memorable
by the last serious struggle which has occurred between
the Lords and Commons on a financial question. The
government bill of 1860, which proposed the abolition
of the paper duty, had passed its third reading in the
Commons by the narrow majority of 219 to 210. This
apparently emboldened the Lords to reject the measure,
1 For further details on this subject see The Life of John Bright, by C. A.
Vince, M.A., in this series. It shows the great influence of John Bright on
the political developments of his time.
The Reform Bills of 1866-1867. 169
which was in effect, though not in form, a money bill.
Technically, no doubt, this vote of the Lords was not a
contravention of the constitution ; but, as was privately
pointed out by Lord John Russell to his phlegmatic chief,
Palmerston, "the exercise of a right which has lain
dormant since the Revolution (of 1688) must give a great
shock to the constitution ". However much the premier
desired to hush up the imminent dispute between the
two Houses, he was pushed on, not only by Lord John
Russell, but by a far more vehement personality. Mr.
Gladstone was the most famous of the group of " Peel-
ites" who had recently rallied to the Liberal cause.
Devotion to Free-trade principles and to the Italian
cause, which the Palmerston cabinet championed, had
at last led the former " hope of the Conservative party"
into the Whig camp ; and he was now chancellor of the
exchequer. The vote of the Lords on a financial ques-
tion touched Mr. Gladstone in one of his tenderest points;
and he fired off a "magnificently mad speech on the
privilege question". 1 For a time it seemed doubtful
whether Palmerston would throw down the gauntlet to
the Lords or accept Mr. Gladstone's resignation. As
Mr. Gladstone was a necessity, the gauntlet was thrown
down. Under the plea of maintaining their privileges
on money questions, the government passed resolutions
safeguarding similar proposals for the future; and by
including their financial scheme in one very compre-
hensive bill, carried their resolutions as regards the
paper duty (1861). This solution of the question is
interesting, not only as marking the legal ratification of
what had been only a prescriptive right of the Lower
House, but also as illustrating the speedy development
of democratic principles in Mr. Gladstone's nature.
The other question which calls for brief notice is the
i The expression was Earl Russell's. Life of Lord John Russell, by S.
Walpole, vol. ii. p. 344.
172 The Rise of Democracy.
reform, the question now lost its academic character,
and began to arouse eager sympathy or furious hostility;
for it has been alike his misfortune and his glory ever
to move amidst storm-clouds of controversy and mantled
with the dust of conflict. The conversion of Mr. Glad-
stone to democratic principles has therefore been an
event of the highest importance. His eager spirit has
unconsciously but inevitably drawn him far beyond his
cautious declaration of May, 1864, that parliamentary
reform ought not to be left until agitation arises, but
that agitation should be forestalled by wise and provi-
dent measures. Much as he has doubtless desired to
act as the serene Neptune, calming the storms of Parlia-
ment, his fate has doomed him to be the ^olus not only
of Westminster, but of the country at large.
The magnitude of his influence in 1866-1885 will be
obvious if we briefly estimate the aims of reformers in
1850-1865. Their chief efforts had been by various de-
vices to select for admission to the franchise only the
best of the unrepresented classes. For instance, the
bills of Lord John Russell of 1854 and of Mr. Disraeli
of 1859, though differing in details, 1 proposed to enfran-
chise only those who by their amount of income, their
rental, or their deposits in savings-banks, might be fairly
considered as possessed of energy, intelligence, or pru-
dence; and due weight was attached to education by
the admission to the franchise of all graduates of univer-
sities. In fact, as Disraeli said, the extension of the
franchise was to be not radical but lateral, importance
being also assigned to the variety of the classes and
interests to be enfranchised. 2 The measures of 1850-1865
1 That of 1854 proposed a 5 rental as admitting to the borough fran-
chise, and ^10 to the county franchise.
2 In Mr. Dickinson's Development of Parliament (1895), chapter ii., this
thought is illustrated with scholarly thoroughness and insight. It seems
to me, however, that the party tactics of 1866-67 are responsible for the
change, which the able author ascribes as ultimately due to the act of 1832.
The Reform Bills of 1866-1867. 173
aimed, in fact, at securing" a due balance of interests;
so that the old electorate, while being enlarged on all
sides, should not be swamped by a wholesale irruption
of illiterates. The difficulty of securing this due balance
amidst the tug- of party warfare and the vehement attacks
of Radicals, led by John Bright, were the chief causes
of the failure of the Reform Bills before 1865.
But party strife, and, still more, party expediency, were
soon to sweep away all the safeguards which even a
Radical like John Stuart Mill recognized as desirable,
if not essential, to well-ordered progress; and_by two
successive plunges England entered upon a form of
advanced democracy such as before 1867 no responsible
statesman and few thinkers would have deemed either
possible or desirable.
The history of the events of 1866-1867 cannot be fully
written until the correspondence of some of the chief
actors is entirely revealed to the world. At present, it
can only be regarded as one of the strangest and most
unaccountable exploits of political legerdemain. Mr.
Gladstone's Reform Bill of 1866 was, on the whole, one
of the old type, resembling its unfortunate predecessors
of the period 1851-1865. Postponing for the present
the question of redistribution of seats, he dealt only with
the electoral franchise, a course of action which, as in
1884, exposed him to sharp and ultimately successful
criticism. 1 He now proposed to extend the right of voting
to tenants paying a rental of j a year in boroughs,
and 14 in counties; while lodgers paying 10 a year
and depositors having ^50 in savings-banks were like-
wise to have votes. These and a few other changes
1 In view of the constitutional conflict which in 1884 was to rage around
the question of separating the Franchise and Redistribution Bills, it may
be well to note Mr. Gladstone's procedure in 1866. At first he proposed to
keep them entirely distinct a course ably defended by Mr. Bright; but
ultimately, after much discussion, he communicated the details of the Redis-
tribution Bill to the House, before the Franchise Bill went into committee.
174 The Rise of Democracy.
would enlarge the electorate by about 400,000, that is,
by double the numbers affected by Mr. Disraeli's pro-
posals of 1859 and Lord Palmerston's of 1860. It is
difficult, therefore, to account for the animus at once
aroused by these moderate proposals, except on the
score of party jealousy or personal dislike of Mr. Glad-
stone.
The measure was attacked for what it was and
what it was not. Mr. Laing complained that it left
Honiton with as much political power as Liverpool or
Manchester; while Mr. Lowe, developing sarcastic
powers which surprised the House and exasperated
working-men, declared that it would put power com-
pletely into the hands of the working-classes, who were
quite unqualified for this responsibility. He claimed
that the rise of wages and general prosperity of the
country placed the 10 rental well within reach of
thrifty and intelligent workmen, who, according to Mr.
Gladstone's own admission, already formed at least
21 per cent of the borough electorate. A reduction of
the limit to j would, he maintained, tend to degrade
the tone of elections and of parliamentary life. In his
reply Mr. Bright twitted Mr. Lowe with desertion from
the Liberal ranks, using the famous "cave of Adullam"
metaphor to designate the group of malcontents. But
ridicule and arguments were of no avail. It was in
vain that Mr. John Stuart Mill, now member for West-
minster, in a speech unsurpassed for wealth of thought,
disclaimed any fears concerning the enfranchisement of
the seven-pounders. It was in vain that Mr. Gladstone,
in a passage of thrilling eloquence, appealed to wider
influences than those of party and of Parliament "The
great social forces which move onward in their might
and majesty, and which the tumult of our debates does
not for a moment impede or disturb those great social
forces are against you : they are marshalled on our side;
The Reform Bills of 1866-1867. 175
and the banner which we carry in this fight, though
perhaps at some moment it may droop over our sinking
heads, yet soon again will float in the eye of heaven;
and it will be borne by the firm hands of the united
people of the three kingdoms, perhaps not to an easy,
but to a certain and to a not far distant victory". In
spite of this prophetic appeal, the second reading of the
bill was carried by the ominously small majority of five !
"Thereupon", says an eye-witness, "there arose a
wild, raging, mad-brained shout. Dozens of half-frantic
Tories stood up in their seats and madly waved their
hats. The Adullamites waved their hats in sympathy;
and he, Lucifer, 1 the prince of the revolt, stood up
flushed, triumphant, and avenged, his complexion deep-
ened into something like bishop's purple."
Although the government now appended a very mode-
rate Redistribution Bill, their whole measure was wrecked
by an amendment in committee. Thereupon the Russell
ministry resigned, and for the third time Lord Derby took
office in the teeth of a hostile majority. Never was victory
more disastrous to the victors. If Gladstone threatened
the Tories and Adullamites with whips, Disraeli was
soon to chastise them with scorpions. Other causes,
besides the inspiring appeals of Mr. Gladstone and
Mr. Bright, tended to reanimate the social forces of
the age. A sudden commercial panic, culminating in
"Black Friday" (May n, 1866), roughly awakened the
average Briton from his years of podgy contentment to
a feeling that all was not well. Moreover, the exciting
scenes at Westminster had much impressed the people ;
and large meetings, almost on the scale of the Chartist
gatherings, were planned to agitate for reform. Scarcely
had the Derby ministry taken the reins of office when
the home secretary forbade a reform demonstration in
Hyde Park. It was an unwise decision. The average
1 t.e. Lowe; see Irving's Annals of Our Time, April 27, 1867.
176 The Rise of Democracy.
Londoner hardly answers to Aristotle's definition : he is
not a political creature ; at least, he is so only when his
real or fancied rights seem threatened. Then he is up
in arms. That is a question which he can understand ;
and he then makes and unmakes ministries as readily as
his forefathers unseated king's who tampered with civic
privileges. The right of meeting in Hyde Park about
any and every subject was more to him than any electoral
reform. To Hyde Park accordingly Londoners thronged
on July 23, broke down the railings, and stoned the
policemen who endeavoured to eject them.
In ordinary circumstances the riot would have been
forgotten in a fortnight; but amidst the excitement
caused by the commercial panic, by Fenian plots, and by
a sharp attack of cholera, Lord Derby's weak govern-
ment became nervous, and wavered under the strenuous
attacks of John Bright and other stalwarts of reform. 1
The Conservative ministry was indeed in so false a
position that it must often have sympathized with the
reformers, who blamed Earl Russell for not forcing on a
dissolution of Parliament. We can now see that such a
course would have been the best, not only for the reform
cause, but for the honour of our political life. But
amidst the distractions caused by approaching war,
commercial panic, Fenianism, and cholera, a general
election in the summer of 1866 might well seem an evil
to be averted at all costs. 2 It may also be conceded
that neither Lord Derby nor Mr. Disraeli had ever
opposed an extension of the suffrage. Both concurred
in the desire of passing a "safe and moderate measure".
Nevertheless, the oddity of the situation and the whim-
sicalities *of their leader aroused many apprehensions
amongst the government minority in the Lower House,
J For Bright's influence at this time, and the indignation aroused by Lowe's
supposed gibes at artisans, see Mr.Vince's Life of Bright, chapter v.
* See S. Walpole's Life of Lord John Russell, ii. p. 430, for the queen's
letters reproaching her ministers for resigning "on a matter of detail".
The Reform Bills of 1866-1867. *77
at the opening- of the session, which were not allayed by
Disraeli's declaration that reform ought no longer to be
a question determining 1 the fate of cabinets. This, at
any rate, portended finality after the various abortive
efforts of 1852-66, and a secure tenure of power to those
who were about to cut the Gordian knot ! Neither were
Tory fears quelled by the dexterous appeal to all members
of the House to divest themselves of party feeling- in
considering the resolutions now forthcoming. It soon
transpired that under the guise of enunciating abstract
truths, the ministerial resolutions were "squeezable" to
almost any extent; and it was with mixed indignation
and alarm that Lowe deprecated their discussion, "while
the press is hounding all on so as to bring the institu-
tions of the country down to the level of democracy".
He further upbraided the government for their almost
open invitation to members, "Say what you like to us,
only for God's sake leave us our places". By a curious
irony of fate, these gibes of the Adullamite chief un-
steadied the wavering governmental lines, and induced
a strategic move to the rear. Disraeli consented to
focus his resolutions in a "real and satisfactory" reform
bill, a concession which led to the resignation of Lords
Carnarvon and Cranborne, and General Peel. The out-
look seemed threatening. It was evident that one more
ministry was in jeopardy between Scylla and Charybdis.
Two courses were open : to jettison reform, which would
have lightened the craft, but enraged the owners and
the crew, besides wrecking the pilot's reputation; or to
allow their reform cargo to be so trimmed and readjusted
as to remedy the "list" and satisfy the malcontent
majority. The latter course was adopted, the officers
forthwith carrying out the orders which came from the
forecastle. Thus was it that the modern Ulysses saved
his ship. 1
1 See Malmesbury's Memoirs of an ex-Minister. "Cabinets all May on
(51410) M
178 The Rise of Democracy.
It remains to consider the changes thus brought
about. Out of 6 1 sections of the Reform Bill of 1867
only four were the work of the ministry, the rest were
so profoundly modified in committee, with the consent
of ministers, as to elicit from General Peel the caustic
remark that nothing had so little vitality as a "vital
point", nothing was so insecure as a "security", and
nothing was so elastic as the conscience of a cabinet
minister. 1 The sting of the satire lay in its accuracy.
After asserting that the government would "never intro-
duce household suffrage pure and simple", Lord Derby
and Mr. Disraeli acquiesced in its insertion, thus giving
effect to one of the chief claims of the old Birmingham
Political Union. Besides giving up the 6 rating limit
in boroughs, the ministry reduced the 20 limit, as
originally proposed for the county franchise, to 12.
At the dictation of the opposition, a lodger franchise of
10 was accepted, and the distinctions between various
classes of rate-payers were abolished: the provisions
assigning special votes to persons having ^50 in the
funds, 30 in a savings-bank, or paying 20 a year in
direct taxation, were likewise withdrawn. "Lateral"
extensions of the franchise, which proposed to assign
votes to graduates of universities, ministers of religion,
and members of any learned profession, were lopped off
by John Bright's renewed denunciation of "fancy fran-
chises", though philosophical Radicals had claimed such
franchises as a desirable set-off to the mere counting
of heads. Lastly, the redistribution of seats, as Lord
Reform Bill. The laissez-aller system followed by the government, trying
to make the best they could of it, but constantly yielding something. The
Conservative members seem disposed to adopt everything, and to think
that it is 'in for a penny, in for a pound'." It should be remembered in
Disraeli's favour that when urged in 1873 to take office, though with a
minority behind him, he refused, owing to the ignominy which so false a
situation entailed. On the other hand, he must have foreseen in 1867 whither
events were certain to lead him.
1 Buxton, Finance and Politics, vol. ii. p. 12, note.
The Reform Bills of 1866-1867. 179
Cranborne complained, effected changes fifty per cent
greater than had been originally contemplated, thereby
yielding to John Bright the victory all along the line.
As for the various "checks" which had been prominent
in every bill since 1852, they too had gone by the board.
Their only relic was a device, apparently first suggested
by Earl Russell, of forming "three-cornered constitu-
encies ". On a motion, at first rejected but finally
accepted by ministers, three members were allotted to
each of the following towns Birmingham, Leeds, Liver-
pool, Manchester, and, in the act for Scotland, to
Glasgow. This proposal was made by Mr. Laing,
seconded by Mr. Baines, and had the support of Mr.
Gladstone, but failed in the Lower House. It was re-
affirmed by the House of Lords, with a proviso that each
elector in those towns should have only two votes, so
that the minority would naturally return one of the three
members. With this clumsy and irritating expedient
(doomed to disappear in 1885) the friends of minority
representation were ill content. Mill had failed to secure
any approval for Mr. Hare's plan of proportionate repre-
sentation; and his motion in favour of according the
suffrage to women was also withdrawn. The differences
between the two Houses having been arranged, the bill
received the royal assent on Aug. 15, 1867.
Such was the change which enlarged the electorate
from 1,352,970 in 1867 to 2,243,259 in 1870, a change
neither loudly called for by the great masses of the
people nor desired by the very men who passed it. As
to the immorality of the tactics which led to the "leap
in the dark ", few will harbour any doubts. Prepared in
a hurry, modified beyond recognition, shuffled through
helter-skelter in order to "dish the Whigs", it will
stand to all time as a masterpiece of political trimming;
and, on the score of political morality, few will deny
some sympathy with the feelings of the Adullamite
i8o The Rise of Democracy.
chief, who, looking at the measure precipitated by his
own headlong opposition to Mr. Gladstone's sober Act
of 1866, now expressed "the shame, the rage, the scorn,
the indignation, and the despair with which this measure
is viewed by every Englishman who is not a slave to
the trammels of party or who is not dazzled, by the
glare of a temporary and ignoble success ". To
which there came a characteristic personal retort from
the opportunist statesman, who had dragged the Tory
squires over the very brink of democratic suffrage, and
a declaration that he had confidence in the national
character of England, in her fame, in the tradition of
a thousand years, and in that glorious future which
awaited her.
Opportunism, in fact, was now to be the dominant
note of political life not only in Great Britain but on the
Continent. The years 1866-67 are the most critical in
the recent developments of democracy. Flouted and
despised ever since the mad rushes of mobs in 1848, a
democratic suffrage was now suddenly adopted or ac-
cepted by responsible statesmen of the three great
Teutonic states. Hostility to bureaucratic Austria
moved Prussia to champion the principle of universal
suffrage in German affairs. The victory of the northern
power not only ensured the acceptance of a democratic
suffrage in the North German Confederation, but com-
pelled Austria to come to terms with her long restive
Hungarians and other subjects. The end of the year
1867 accordingly witnessed the adoption, more or less
reluctant, of parliamentary representation in all the
lands between the Baltic and the Adriatic. 1
The resemblance between British and continental de-
velopments was of course only superficial, though it
iCf. Bismarck's admission "I accepted universal suffrage, but with
repugnance, as a Frankfurt tradition" (i.e. of 1848). Busch, Our Chan-
cellor, Eng. Ed. vol. ii. p. 196.
The Reform Bills of 1866-1867. 181
may be questioned whether the imminence of the Austro-
Prussian war at midsummer, 1866, by rendering" a dis-
solution of our Parliament hazardous or impossible, did
not contribute to the strange events leading up to the
Conservative Reform Bill. In any case, the world now
saw with cynical surprise the adoption of democratic
franchises at Berlin, Westminster, and Vienna by the
very statesmen who previously had offered the most
strenuous opposition. In reviewing these events one can-
not but feel the truth of Canning's adage "Those who
oppose improvement because it is innovation, may one
day have to submit to innovation which is not improve-
ment". For whatever views may be entertained as to
the merits of the franchises granted in these years, they
were undoubtedly conceded from sheer expediency, and,
what is more important, without any of that preparation
in the lives of the respective nations which is the very
life-blood of worthy citizenship. Changes, which might
have wrought nothing but good if they had come as the
natural result of civic training, were hastily flung to
astonished peoples as the result of partisan or diplomatic
manceuvrings for place and power. In this fact we may
discern one cause of the comparative failure of democ-
racy to attain that higher moral development, which
has ever been the goal of its worthiest champions; and
possibly the want of any vital relation between civic
duty and the new political privileges may account for
the swift relapses into indifference which have so often
recurred when the material interests of the newly-en-
franchised classes have received temporary satisfaction.
It will be alike impossible and undesirable to do
more than notice the salient features of the memorable
measures which ensued after the downfall of Mr. Dis-
raeli's ministry in 1868. Coming into power with a
majority of 128, Mr. Gladstone held a more commanding
position than had been enjoyed by any premier since
182 The Rise of Democracy.
1832, and he now proceeded to give effect to many
demands which had been postponed during the suprem-
acy of Lords Palmerston and Derby. The two first
great measures were prompted by a desire to remedy
the chief grievances still felt by the majority of the Irish
people, namely the supremacy of an alien church and
the pressure of an unjust land tenure. The disestablish-
ment of the Church of Ireland removed the last relic of
that Protestant ascendency, which had been the central
principle of British policy towards the sister island from
the time of William III.'s conquest down to the con-
cession of civic rights to Roman Catholics in 1829. Mr.
Gladstone's act of 1869 completed the edifice of religious
and civic equality, of which the Duke of Wellington and
Sir Robert Peel had rather reluctantly reared the frame-
work.
Equally important was the endeavour of the new
ministry to heal the agrarian troubles of Ireland by
extending to all parts the plan of compensation for im-
provements which was enjoyed by tenants in Ulster.
The Irish Land Act of 1870, which passed both Houses
of Parliament by large majorities in the Commons by
442 to ii is the first important effort at remedying
immemorial grievances in land tenure so as to ensure
something like a partnership between landlord and
tenant. The act may be considered as a concession
to that spirit of equality which has been increasingly
applied to agrarian affairs ever since the first French
Revolution. But it was also a necessity to establish a
modus vivendi between an unpopular and largely non-
resident landlord class, and a fast-increasing peasantry
which clung to a soil that never could adequately support
them. The process has been pushed on by imperious
economic forces. Every railway driven into the virgin
prairies of the Missouri, Saskatchewan, and La Plata
has sharpened competition for the corn-growers and
The Reform Bills of 1866-1867. 183
graziers of the Old World; and had not Parliament
striven to readjust the relations between landlord and
tenant, not only in Ireland but in Great Britain, our
agriculture might have fallen into the state of that of
ancient Italy.
Of the other great measures of the Gladstone ministry,
two only need be noticed here. The Ballot Act, passed
in spite of strong opposition by the Upper House, gave
effect to secrecy of voting, for which Mr. Grote, and
after him the Chartists, had agitated in vain. The
opposition was ostensibly based either on sentimental
objections to secrecy, in which some Liberals, among
them John Stuart Mill, concurred; or on the more
serious contention that personation at elections would
be easier than heretofore. The new system has, how-
ever, on the whole proved to work remarkably well, and
has justified the persistence of its early champions.
Another of the "points" of the People's Charter was
hereby gained.
In its far-reaching social results, the Act for providing
Elementary Education may be pronounced to be the most
important act of the whole period. Other measures
altered the balance of political power; but none has
entered so intimately into the life of the people, or borne
results so fruitful and beneficial, as the act passed by
Mr. Forster in 1870. Imperfect in some details though
it was, this great measure for the first time put education
within the reach of every cottager, supplementing, with-
out destroying, the work which the National and British
schools had nobly endeavoured to carry on. The ques-
tion of religious instruction, which had been the crux in
and after 1843, was now solved by the Cowper-Temple
clauses in a compromise which has successfully resisted
the immediate onslaughts of Mr. Miall and the Non-
conformists, as well as clerical attacks in recent years.
Now, at last, the people of the United Kingdom gained
184 The Rise of Democracy.
that modicum of "schoolmasters' education" for which
Carlyle had passionately pleaded in Past and Present.
It must be confessed that Mr. Forster's measure was
to some extent the result of middle-class apprehensions.
In the midst of his invective against the Reform Act
of 1867, Lowe had exclaimed that it was thenceforth
absolutely necessary to compel our future masters to
learn their letters, and that education must be pressed
on without delay for the peace of the country. In
an exaggerated form he expressed the fears of many
thinking men of an earlier day, when the teachings of
Owen and Hodgkin were agitating the working-classes.
Those apprehensions were curiously expressed by John
Stuart Mill. In his zeal for education, the philosopher
declared that he rejoiced at the power which those level-
ling notions about property still had over artisans, because
fear and fear alone would compel the middle classes
seriously to take up the education question in order to
dispel such fallacious notions. These fears were doubt-
less a trifle antiquated in 1867; but the notorious trade-
union outrages at Sheffield showed that there was still
grave danger in allowing our labouring population to
grow up in brutalizing ignorance.
The impressionable character of an untrained populace
was rarely more manifested than in the speedy decline
in popularity of the Gladstone cabinet in 1871-1873.
Various external causes have of course been plausibly
assigned for this swing of the pendulum. The distrac-
tions caused by the Franco-German War, the commence-
ment of those senseless menaces from Berlin which have
sown discord between us and our Teutonic cousins, the
rather tame surrender by the Gladstone ministry of the
Black Sea clauses of the Treaty of Paris in deference to
Russian demands, its complaisance to the United States
over the exorbitant awards in the Alabama arbitration,
all these naturally reawakened our national spirit, which
The Reform Bills of 1866-1867. 185
had lain dormant under the cyclonic activity of domestic
legislation. Indeed, the phenomenal reforming- zeal of
the years 1868-1872 tended to weld various vested in-
terests on to the shattered Conservative party. Patriots
enraged at the degradation of Britain to the rank of a
second-rate power, employers of labour who feared the
rising demands of their "hands", military officers fuming
at the abolition of the time-honoured "purchase system",
naval critics of Admiralty maladministration, tax-payers
incensed at the increase of charges imposed by army and
educational reforms, Nonconformist ultras alienated by
the Education Act, clerics irritated by the abolition of
religious tests at our universities, Irish Nationalists
stung to the quick by the Peace Preservation Act, all
were swept into the opposition drag-net. It was in vain
for Mr. Gladstone to declare, shortly before the dissolu-
tion of Parliament, that if he were returned to power,
he would abolish the income-tax. Mr. Disraeli made
exactly the same bid for power, and skilfully flattered
the amour propre of the nation which Gladstone's pacific
policy had ruffled. Such were the chief causes under-
mining the popularity of the powerful Liberal adminis-
tration. Their result was seen in the general election of
1874, which sent up to Westminster 350 Conservatives,
as against 244 Liberals and 58 Home Rulers.
Looking back calmly on the five years of the Gladstone
administration, it must be considered as falsifying the
worst fears of its opponents no less than disappointing
the enthusiastic hopes of its supporters. On the one
hand, the fears of the old Whigs, who regarded Demos
as an insatiable Caliban, that must be taught to read
and write lest perchance he might rend Prospero and
engulf at once his learning and his goods, were soon
seen to be the result of nightmare. Prospero and
Miranda remained unharmed. Taxation was reduced,
and wealth advanced with giant strides. The policy of
i86 The Rise of Democracy.
systematic bleeding- of the wealthy had not yet found
favour with any but the smallest section of the Radicals;
and these were utterly outnumbered by the men of pro-
perty, who still retained their old predominance in the
Commons. Just as the results of the Reform Act of
1832 were toned down by the personal ascendency of
Earl Grey, Lord Melbourne, and Lord Palmerston, so
the results of the transition to democracy, accomplished
in 1867, were mitigated by the ascendency of Mr. Glad-
stone and of colleagues who represented still more fully
the old Liberalism. Owing to this fact, to the distractions
caused by Irish and continental troubles, and to the
general prosperity of the country, the enthusiasm for
political change speedily cooled. And yet, with the ex-
ception of the disestablishment of the Irish Church, no
one of Mr. Gladstone's Acts can be called destructive.
Neither were the rights of property trenched upon except
in some provisions of the Irish Land Act, which did
little more than apply to other parts of Ireland the tenant
right of Ulster. The legislation of 1868-1873 was sober,
constructive, and on a level with the highest traditions
of the past.
Chapter XII.
The Ebb and Flow of Public Opinion.
It must be confessed by all unprejudiced observers that
the Reform Act of 1867 inaugurated a period of unrest
and political instability. As the competition between
parties for the enjoyment of popular favours has become
keener, every general election has aroused boundless
hopes of the felicity to be bestowed on the nation by the
new administration.
" Man never is, but always to be, blest."
The Ebb and Flow of Public Opinion. 187
If Pope's verse is true of his complacent age, how much
more is it correct of our own, distracted by alluring" ideals
and warring programmes ! This is at once its glory and
its danger. Hope has energized masses of the people
that previously were sunk in torpor; but it has also
swayed them heedlessly from side to side in search of
the enchanted fruit of happiness temptingly dangled
before their eyes. This is a natural, perhaps inevitable,
result of recent reform acts. The admission to the
electorate of classes that necessarily know little about the
limitations which beset the action of the most benevolent
law-makers, and still less about the complexity of our
national interests, has tended to magnify the hopes of
the nation, and also to deepen the disappointment which
almost inevitably follows. Competition for the votes of
the newly enfranchised leads to the cultivation of the art
of programme making, and the successful claimants for
power come into office weighted with an impossible
programme and a discordant majority.
After five years of legislative activity, the benefits of
which few will now contest, Mr. Gladstone saw the
majority of 128, which supported him in 1869, trans-
formed by the general election of 1874 into a minority
of IO6. 1 His successor, Mr. Disraeli, was to experience
the same fate, the general election of 1880 changing the
majority of 106 into a minority of 106, if the Home Rule
vote be omitted from the comparison. As I shall show
in the next chapter, the agrarian measures promised by
Mr. Gladstone in 1885, and the extension of household
suffrage to the rural districts, portended a continuance
of Liberal predominance, until the Home Rule Bill cut
athwart the plane of political life. It can hardly be said
to have restored the balance of political power, for it
1 Reckoned as between Liberals and Conservatives only. The appearance
of 58 Home Rulers, definitely organized as a party, confuses the statistics
when compared with those of 1868.
i88 The Rise of Democracy.
would be absurd to use a metaphor which implies
stability to denote a series of oscillations. The only
regularity in our modern political life is the almost
monotonous periodicity of its changes. The appended
foot-note will illustrate more clearly than any description
the instability of our modern political system, which may
be realized by placing in contrast the conditions which
obtained before the Reform Acts of 1867 and i832. a
Roughly speaking, the period 1714-1793 may be de-
scribed as one of unbroken predominance for the Whig
governing families, disturbed by factious feuds, but not
marked by any changes based on principle. The advent
of militant democracy in France dissolved for ever the
hitherto triumphant Whig oligarchy; and the Tories,
rallied by the younger Pitt to the support of the throne,
enjoyed a tenure of power, which was broken only by
the reform movement of 1831-32. The great electoral
change of 1832 closed the era of almost Chinese immo-
bility, and ministerial changes followed with perplexing
rapidity; but these changes, when not merely of a
1 The following are the results of the general elections of 1833-1895 :
Liberals, &c. Conservatives. Home Rulers.
1833
... 486 ...
... 176
273
1837
348
1841,
... 286 ...
... 367
1847
1852,
i857,
1859.
... 3 2 S -
... 3IS -
... 366 ...
... 348 ...
{
I
... 287
3S
of whom 105
were Peelites
of whom 40
were Peelites
1866,
.. 361 .
204
1868
... 393
... 265
35
1880
... 349 ...
243
1885
... 335 ...
249
TRA / Liberal
1886, i H R ,
- 394 {
including 78
Lib. Unionists
58
60
86
Liberal > ^
Home Rulers f 274
The Ebb and Flow of Public Opinion. 189
personal nature, were often due to the evenness of the
parliamentary struggle, especially in the years 1847 to
1866, when the electors enfranchised by the measure of
1832 had settled down into the parties to which they
had most affinity. On comparing the strength of parties
in the years 1847-1866 with the figures of the next twenty
years, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that each
extension of the suffrage has increased the uncertainties
of political life. Whether these changes will ultimately
tend to the re-establishment of a new equilibrium, as
happened after the electors enfranchised in 1832 had
become inured to the responsibilities and disappointments
of the political game, time alone can show. 1
I have already suggested some causes, both internal and
external, for the instability which marks the years since
Mr. Disraeli's Reform Act. On the whole, I am inclined
to assign less importance than is usually done to the
external causes, that is, to the opposition of "vested
interests " to which a defeated party is ever wont com-
placently to ascribe its disaster. It seems impossible
that so great a change could have been brought about
merely by a combination of vested interests, especially
as these had always been more or less hostile to Mr.
Gladstone's programme. It was perfectly well known
what the Liberal ministry would attempt; and only in
foreign and Irish affairs were any surprises in store for
the electorate. It is true that the personnel of the Glad-
stone ministry was not perfect. Mr. Ayrton's lofty
pretensions, Robert Lowe's stinging tongue (not to
speak of his match tax), even the irritating Aristides-like
a The instability of opinion will be more strikingly obvious when it is
remembered that the increase in the size of the average constituency has
been enormous. This ought to have contributed to stability, and doubtless
it will do so when political opinion has solidified. In the old rotten boroughs
the transference of a score of votes frequently turned the scale. Now it
generally needs a thousand or more ; but the transfer of the thousand votes
is apparently quite as easy as that of the score used to be.
190 The Rise of Democracy.
quality of Mr. Gladstone's character, all contributed to
worry and weary the public mind. But then the people
must have been singularly impressionable, not to say
fickle, to have allowed such trifles to weigh in the balance
with the undeniable benefits received from the ministry.
Nor were these boons only prospective. Taxation had
been lightened to the extent of ^"12,000,000, and the
national debt had been reduced by ^26, 000,000. Trade
had improved. Coming to power shortly after a com-
mercial crisis, the administration left the country in a
blaze of prosperity, which ought to have counterbalanced
Disraeli's gibe that ministers lived in a blaze of apology.
But the country forgot the boons and remembered only
the jests Several ministries have fallen victims to bad
harvests or commercial crises. It was reserved for the
year 1874 to witness the growth of the nation's wealth
by leaps and bounds, and the increasing unpopularity of
an administration which had largely contributed to that
prosperity.
The fundamental cause of the revulsion in popular
feeling seems to me to reside in the unpreparedness of
the new electorate for its duties. It was certainly not
educated up to the level of Mr. Gladstone's reforming
zeal. Indeed, an examination of the legislation of
1869-1873 proves its motive power to have resided, not
so much in the people's will as in the convictions of the
premier and a few of his colleagues. The British people
can stand "heroic legislation" only in small doses.
John Bright expressed the feelings of the average man
when, surprised at Gladstone's decision to bring in the
great Education Bill only two days after the introduction
of the complex Irish Land Bill, he exclaimed that it was
like attempting to drive six omnibuses at once through
Temple Bar. Yet the feat was accomplished ; and what
is far more, the ministry carried through Parliament every
important item in its programme except the ill-starred
The Ebb and Flow of Public Opinion. 191
Dublin University Bill. The pace was certainly trying
to John Bull. But he had been warned of it before he
paid his fare. The journey ended safely, prosperously,
even happily, as it seemed ; and yet he at once transferred
his custom to the opposition coach. It is difficult to
believe that he was the same personage as before the
change of 1867; and indeed a comparison of the election
results before and after 1867 shows how important was
the change then effected. The constancy to party ties,
which had marked the previous generation, was replaced
by a habit of "voting agin' the government", whether
it does or does not carry out its programme. In 1869-
1874 the ministry apparently did too much. The country
was so surfeited with reforms that the legislation of those
years, which was expected to win the eternal gratitude
of the newly enfranchised, aroused only a passing senti-
ment. The people most benefited by the reforms were
as yet too pot-bound and callous to appreciate them at
their true value; and the very Ballot Act, which, it was
supposed, would add to the political power of the pro-
letariate and attach it to the Liberal party, served as a
screen for its ingratitude in the election of 1874. It is
not surprising that Mr. Gladstone soon decided to resign
the thankless position of a political leader for the less
transient charms of literary life, until the forlorn cries
of a distressed Eastern people again appealed to his
humanity, and called him once again into the arena of
party strife.
Mr. Gladstone has not been richly dowered by nature
with that social tact or worldly wisdom which compre-
hends not only the greatness but the littleness of man-
kind. He could not see that the country wanted rest
and comfort, pleasure and prestige, rather than epoch-
marking reforms. Mr. Disraeli understood the needs
of the time. The artisan class wanted a few practical
measures such as would add to the comforts of life.
192 The Rise of Democracy.
These the new premier granted by his factory legisla-
tion, by Mr. Cross's Artisans' Dwellings Act (1875),
and by the act for the proper supervision of Friendly
Societies. He thus strove to emulate the enlightened
example of Henri IV. of France, who boasted that in his
time every peasant could have a fowl in his pot.
But side by side with this pot au feu policy, Disraeli
cherished vaster designs. He saw that wealthy England
was weary of the narrowness of the Manchester school
and of the humiliations entailed by its "peace at any
price" policy. His judgment was correct. The middle
classes were slowly but surely outgrowing the "little
England" ideas of the days of Cobden. A pacific
foreign policy and devotion to domestic legislation were
doubtless desirable when England was in the throes of
her industrial revolution, and was distracted by desperate
strikes or Chartist demonstrations. But those days
were past. The worst grievances had been healed.
Free-trade had brought cheap bread to the artisan and
abundant orders to the manufacturer and merchant.
The very success of the Manchester school in expanding
our commerce passed the death sentence on the "little
England" policy which was needful in the "forties".
The splendid growth of Greater Britain reawakened in
the race those larger aspirations towards a world-wide
Commonwealth which had lain dormant since Waterloo ;
and now, when the German Empire sprang full-armed
into life, and blatant militarism became the dominant
note of European politics, there was imperious need that
the mother land should turn her gaze seawards, and
should protect her defenceless colonies and merchantmen
against the jealousies, rivalries, and possible assaults of
mail-clad continental powers. This phase in our
national development was natural and inevitable. Our
wealth had provoked envy which was far from being
appeased by Mr. Gladstone's pacific concessions. The
The Ebb and Flow of Public Opinion. 193
nation therefore demanded precautionary measures and
a stiffer tone in our foreign policy. Surely, though un-
consciously, the nation was swinging back from what I
have ventured to call the introspective or domestic phase
of life to the expansive phase which must now and again
mark the growth of any vigorous insular race. How-
ever guilty of ingratitude towards individuals, the nation
must satisfy the needs of its existence. Those needs
were for the time imperialist ; and Disraeli seemed about
to satisfy them by his "spirited foreign policy".
The two chief aims, then, of the new premier were to
promote comfort at home by soothing little instalments
of social legislation and to enhance the nation's prestige
abroad. For a time this deft admixture of the prosaic
and the sublime seemed to give general satisfaction.
The Artisans' Dwellings Act facilitated the destruction
of fever-breeding dens and the erection of healthier
dwellings. 1 The Friendly Societies Act, while not in-
terfering unduly with the working of provident societies,
provided some safeguards against the frauds and follies
which had wrecked so many of these valuable institu-
tions. The Factory Acts of 1875 and 1878, and other
measures regulating the status of workers, bore witness
to the honest intentions of the ministry, and of the
premier, who in his novel Sybil had expressed his desire
to rally the artisans under the banner of some modern
Simon de Montfort. While these measures appealed to
Saxon domesticity, the premier's foreign policy had that
touch of romance which might have been expected from
the author of Tancred. Disraeli knew that under John
Bull's prosaic exterior there lurk ideas, if only they can
J A practical result is Corporation Street, Birmingham, which, by the
energy and foresight of the town-council (especially of Mr. Chamberlain),
was driven through a wretched slum, and provided not only a fine thorough-
fare, but ample accommodation for the hitherto badly-housed artisans. See
Dolman's Municipalities at Work, p. 12. For some objections to the act
of 1875 see Dr. Cunningham's Politics and Economics, p. 171.
ip4 The Rise of Democracy.
be made vocal by some skilful interpreter. The race
which had produced Sidney, Spenser, Drake, Essex,
Raleigh, Marlborough, Clive, Wolfe, and Chinese
Gordon, could not be lacking in world-subduing quali-
ties. These qualities must now be reawakened to con-
solidate the dominions which Britons had won. That
pride in the empire which moved even the gloomy poet
of Olney to impassioned verse must again play its part
in the history of the race. Its imperial instincts must
assert their supremacy over the huckstering side of the
Saxon nature.
It seemed that the United Kingdom had secured the
ideal policy which satisfied its duality of interests, re-
conciling the desire of comfort in the cottage with the
passion for world-wide renown, combining the prose of
domestic interests with the glamour of eastern romance,
the libertas of the Saxon with the imperium of the
Roman. How came it that even the political art and
rhetorical felicity of a Disraeli failed to wed these ideals
in a lasting union?
In brief, the prose of the western hemisphere and the
passions of the eastern world conspired to destroy the
new policy, by pitting against each other our industrial
and imperial interests. The United Kingdom is the Janus
of the modern world : it is the meeting-place of the east
and the west. Politically it must perforce turn east-
wards to safeguard its Australasian and Indian posses-
sions. Industrially its gaze is turned westwards by the
gigantic industrial and agricultural developments of the
New World. There is the eternal conflict of interests
which must ever tax the powers of British statesman-
ship. They have never been so tested as in the years
1874-1880, which were rendered memorable by un-
equalled activity in the peaceful development of the
North American continent, and by popular commotions
in the usually immobile east. Let us briefly examine
The Ebb and Flow of Public Opinion. 195
the concurrent effects of these events in English political
life.
Every reduction in the cost of iron and steel, every
triumph of the engineer, whether in the construction of
railroads or of steamships, has tended to annihilate
distance, to place the settler of Nebraska on almost
even terms with the farmer of Norfolk in competing for
the London market, and thereby to reduce old English
estates to something like the value of prairie land. For
political and economic reasons which need not here be
detailed, the results of our free-trade policy were only
fully felt after 1870. Their pressure was most severe
during Disraeli's tenure of power, when successive bad
harvests at home threatened to involve landlord, farmer,
and labourer in one common ruin. The agrarian crisis,
which had long been foreseen by Free-traders, was thus
swiftly and acutely developed. It seemed to portend the
same results for the United Kingdom as those which
were fatal to the agriculture of ancient Italy, converting
its fertile plains into a wilderness of great estates, a
purgatory to the cultivators and a paradise for the
wealthy. Under the selfish Roman oligarchy free-trade
desolated the country districts, driving the peasants into
overcrowded cities, where they subsisted on government
doles of Libyan corn. Was it to have an analogous
result on the life of England and Ireland? Considered
merely on economic grounds, our agricultural position
was almost as serious as that of Rome in the days of the
Gracchi. Our land system was as little suited to with-
stand the strain of American competition as was that of
ancient Rome when the cheap corn of Sicily, Libya, and
Egypt began to flood her markets. But the moral and
political conditions were altogether different. The House
of Lords had by a considerable majority ratified the
abolition of the Corn -laws, an act which has received
all too scanty a recognition from partisan historians.
196 The Rise of Democracy.
Not only had the peers of the United Kingdom by that
concession exposed their rent-rolls to the full force of
foreign competition, they had also assented to Mr.
Gladstone's Irish Land Act of 1870; and now, when its
provisions were rendered obsolete by the onward rush
of American competition, many of the Irish landlords
accorded substantial reductions of rent. The same
action was still more generally followed by landlords in
Great Britain to necessitous tenants behaviour which
stands in noble contrast to that of the senators of
ancient Rome, who clung to every shred of legal right
and hounded agrarian reformers to death.
Yet, in spite of the generally enlightened and open-
handed conduct of British landlords, an agricultural
crisis so acute as that which began after 1875 inevitably
embittered class relations, and fostered a democratic
spirit such as never before had invaded the rural dis-
tricts. It was in vain that Parliament passed the Agri-
cultural Holdings Act (1875), granting compensation to
tenants for unexhausted improvements. The measure
was permissive, rendering such payment compulsory
only where both landlord and tenant had agreed to
abide by its provisions ; and many landlords, scared by
the prospect of increasing demands on a diminishing
rent-roll, contracted themselves out of its operation. It
was in vain that the premier used all the resources of
his facile logic to prove that the land might and must
support landlord, tenant, and labourer, not to speak of
tithe-receiver. For once he spoke to deaf ears, even
in his own Buckinghamshire. As distress deepened
and taxation increased, class hostility developed in
intensity. Farmers demanded a revision of land-laws
in the interests of tenants, remembering full well that
Cobden and Bright had demanded such a revision as
necessitated by the increased area of foreign competition.
Above all, they pressed for relief from the game-laws,
The Ebb and Flow of Public Opinion. 197
under which the landlords' sport seemed to be regarded
as prior to the tenants' interests. Now, on these topics
Cobdenites had long been insisting- in vain. At last,
under the pressure of distress, the bucolic mind gave
heed; and farmers began to look to the Liberal party
for agrarian reforms more drastic than any which could
be expected from the holders of power.
But farmers were not the only class that was induced
by the pressure of American competition to coquet with
democratic ideas. The movement began to agitate even
the stolid agricultural labourers, who looked with envy
on the position gained by trade-unions for town artisans.
For the first time since the collapse of the Agricultural
Labourers' Unions in 1834-1835, Hodge began to be-
come a political creature and talk about his rights an
important development, which, as will shortly appear,
prepared the way for the agrarian policy of the Liberal
party in I884. 1
Even more serious were the results of foreign competi-
tion in the economic and social life of Ireland. Despite
the well-meant efforts of Mr. Gladstone to readjust the
relations of landlord and tenant, those relations became
ever more strained. Differences of creed and of race
often separated landlord and tenant in that unhappy
island, where there were few industries except agricul-
ture for a population whose natural increase was the
greatest in Europe. Every force which could make for
social unrest was therefore at work in Ireland, when a
prominent member of the Home Rule party saw in the
agrarian question a means not only of shattering land-
lordism, but of dissolving the union between Great
1 The increased importance attached to the extension of household suffrage
to the rural districts may be measured by the votes of the House of Commons
on the subject. In 1872 it was rejected by 148 to 70; in 1873 i* was talked
out; in 1874 it was rejected by 287 to 173; in 1875 by 268 to 166; in 1876
by 264 to 165; in 1877 by 274 to 218; in 1878 by 271 to 219; in 1879 by 291
to 226.
198 The Rise of Democracy.
Britain and Ireland. In October, 1879, Mr. Davitt formed
the Land League, which forthwith commenced a sys-
tematic campaign against the payment of rent, and
before long enabled the Home Rule party almost to
snatch a victory.
Such were the chief influences of American competition
on the agriculture and society of the United Kingdom,
tending inevitably to the modification, if not the Ameri-
canizing of our laws and institutions. But while our
patriarchal customs were exposed to an economic strain
unparalleled in the history of the modern world, the
storm-cloud of war began to appear in the East, small
at first, but speedily spreading over the whole sky. A
famine of unsurpassed severity in India in 1876-1878
taxed alike the powers of the Indian government and
the generosity of the British public. By an unfortunate
coincidence the new title of Empress of India, recently
accorded by Parliament to Her Majesty, was officially
proclaimed at Delhi on New Year's Day, 1877, when
large tracts of India were already devastated by the
famine ; and a title which was meant as a spirited retort
to the advances of Russia in Turkestan, was at that
time deemed by many to be the cynical avowal of an
ambitious and heartless imperialism. This impression
was deepened by the Afghan policy of the Indian
government, which embroiled us in a serious war, and
hopelessly deranged the finances of our great eastern
dependency. People began to ask whether an almost
bankrupt possession, which embroiled us in constant
wars, gave any adequate return for the efforts of the
" weary Titan".
These searchings of heart were rendered more acute
by the Earl of Beaconsfield's 1 policy in the Eastern
Question. Into the merits of that policy it is impossible
here to enter ; but now that the Bulgarian atrocities have
1 Mr. Disraeli received this title in August, 1876.
The Ebb and Flow of Public Opinion. 199
paled before infinitely greater horrors, it may be safely
admitted as a non-partisan statement, that the conscience
of the British people was deeply shocked at the deter-
mination of the ministry to uphold the integrity of the
Turkish Empire on the score of British interests. There
was a general feeling of repugnance, not only at the
Turcophil policy of the government, but at the imperial
interests which seemed to call for that policy. The feel-
ing was honourable to the conscience of our people, even
if it was expressed by Mr. Gladstone in his Midlothian
campaign with the zeal of a prophet rather than the
foresight of a statesman. However much the imperial-
ism of Lord Beaconsfield may be criticised in regard to
details, there can be little doubt now that he laid down
the general lines of policy which must be followed by
the British race if it is to hold a foremost place in the
world.
But even those who admit his prescience as to the
broader issues of imperialism may still criticise his
Indian or his Turcophil policy, either on the score of
morality or of its inexpedience under existing circum-
stances. There can be little doubt, indeed, that his
action on these questions contributed largely to the
revival of the Liberal party in 1878-1880; but it may
be doubted whether the dreary succession of wars and
rumours of wars would alone have hurled the Conserva-
tives from power, had not our resources been grievously
depleted by the agrarian troubles previously described.
The depression in trade and agriculture, and the war
expenditure for the East and in Zululand, were conjointly
responsible for a series of deficits which in 1880 amounted
in all to ; 1 0,000,000,* and that too in spite of consider-
able additions to taxation. The people, who had pre-
viously grown accustomed to magnificent surpluses,
visited their resentment on the government, which, after
1 Puxton, Finance and Politics, ii. p. 256,
200 The Rise of Democracy.
proclaiming 1 its championship of social legislation, left
the classes mutually suspicious, trade and agriculture
in the depths of stagnation, and our resources crippled
by a heavy expenditure. It is said that the general
election of 1880 was decided by the unpopular foreign
policy of the government and the glowing oratory of
Mr. Gladstone. To the present writer these causes seem
inadequate to account for the swift change in public
opinion. Probably the agrarian difficulties, and the de-
pression of trade which they entailed, were of far greater
potency. The pot au feu policy of the government had
been a failure owing to the causes previously described ;
and farmers now for once joined hands with the town
artisans in helping to power the party which promised
peace abroad and drastic agrarian legislation at home.
This combination of various classes of malcontents pos-
sessed few elements of stability; but it sufficed (as was
the case in 1874) to overturn a government and to
inaugurate a new period of legislative activity and social
unrest, the chief features of which will be noticed in the
next chapter.
Chapter XIII.
The Third Reform Act.
In a speech delivered at Brighton amidst the turmoil
aroused by the third Reform Act, Sir George (then Mr.)
Trevelyan revealed the origin of the demand for the
assimilation of the borough and county franchise, of
which he had been the most persistent parliamentary
champion. He said that his attention had been riveted
on this question in 1868 by the earnest appeals of his
artisan constituents in the Border burghs. They had
recently been admitted to the suffrage by the second
The Third Reform Act. 201
Reform Act, which, though according- votes to every
householder in a parliamentary borough, still kept the
limit of the county "occupation" franchise as high as
a ;i2 rental. They strongly urged their member to
turn his attention to the work of removing this in-
equality, by which nearly all members of their class were
excluded from the county franchise. He was led to
devote his special energies to this task by his admiration
of the motives which inspired the request "This pro-
posal began in unselfishness, and it has been unselfish
and disinterested to the very end ". The incident proves
that the third movement for reform, which led up to the
Acts of 1884-1885, owed its origin to the feelings of the
working-classes as largely as that of 1830-1832.
The second Reform Act had no distinctively demo-
cratic origin; but the party manoeuvres which carried it
led up to a compromise that no one pretended to regard
as final. The resulting anomalies were scarcely less
irritating than those which it removed or mitigated.
The electoral device which, while according to five
large towns three members apiece, really reduced their
parliamentary voting power to one, was denounced in
scathing terms by the veteran member for Birmingham;
and while the " three-cornered " trick irritated the Radi-
cals of the great towns, the inequalities between the
urban and rural franchise served to awaken the artisans
of suburbs and farm labourers to the fact that they too
had a real grievance. Why should every holder of a
rickety tenement in a parliamentary borough have a
vote, while the artisans renting 11 cottages in Peck-
ham or Ancoats, and the small tenant-holders of Kent
and Midlothian, were still excluded from the suffrage?
The inequality was exasperating, even to a people which
was not imbued with the continental mania for political
symmetry. Reformers, moreover, could cite the argu-
ments of Mr. Disraeli in 1859 as being fatal to the
202 The Rise of Democracy.
anomalies of borough and county franchise created by
the Act of 1867. In introducing to the House of Com-
mons Lord Derby's Reform Bill of 1859, the young
Conservative leader defended the principle of a general
10 limit to the suffrage in these words " In order to
bring about a general content and sympathy between
the different parts of the constituent body, the govern-
ment proposes to recognize the principle of identity of
suffrage between counties and towns ". These words
now supplied reformers with an excellent text in their
new efforts for electoral reform. The claims of logic,
the sympathy of town artisans for their suburban or
rural brethren, the grievances which these suffered at the
hands of stupid vestries or harsh landlords, the need of
a completer representation of our ever-increasing manu-
facturing districts, all these topics furnished inexhaustible
materials for the champions of reform. The shortcom-
ings of the Redistribution Bill of 1867 were mercilessly
exposed. 1 It left one member apiece to 42 boroughs,
all of which had fewer than 7000 inhabitants; 142
boroughs, having a total population of 1,751,000, sent,
in all, 172 members to Westminster; while Liverpool,
Manchester, Birmingham, and Glasgow, containing
1,832,000 inhabitants, practically counted only 4 votes
in a parliamentary division.
But this was not, in the main, a question for the great
towns so much as for the rural districts. The climax
of the industrial revolution had been reached in the
years 1837-1848. The brunt of the agrarian crisis,
resulting from American competition and from other
causes which were explained in the last chapter, was felt
most keenly in and after the year 1876. Just as the
grinding pressure of want had at the earlier date en-
rolled hundreds of thousands of operatives in the Chartist
ranks, so now agricultural distress permeated farm
1 e.g. in Mr. John Noble's pamphlet on the Reform of Parliament.
The Third Reform Act. 203
labourers, and for a time even farmers themselves, with
Radical notions. As has previously been shown, the
general election of 1880 was decided very largely by
agrarian questions. And when the severity of the agri-
cultural crisis was not appreciably mitigated by the
Ground Game Act, the abolition of the malt tax, and
other remedial measures, the plan of creating peasant
holdings gained general favour as affording a means of
solving the agricultural problem. If peasant proprietors
could not successfully meet American competition in
corn, yet in dairy and market - garden produce they
would surely be able to hold their own against the
peasants of France, Holland, and Denmark. At any
rate, the formation of peasant holdings would tend to
root the people in the soil, and stop the drift to the
towns which was depleting the country and crowding the
rookeries of London. Such were the ideas which were
soon to find definite expression in the idyllic programme
"three acres and a cow". Rural labourers themselves
were aroused from their usual lethargy, and looked on
the franchise as a means of attaining the felicity with
which Feargus O'Connor had enchanted the minds of
their fathers in the forties. It was evident that only
the Liberals or Radicals could now effect the transfor-
mation of rural Britain into the Arcadia of the poets;
for only this party could or would arm Hodge with the
modern diviner's wand, the franchise.
Such appear to have been the chief motives which
propelled onwards the democratic movement in and after
1880. Some there were who advocated household suf-
frage on the same lofty motives as those which animated
Joseph Sturge and the Complete- Suffrage party forty
years previously. Others again saw in a drastic elec-
toral change a means of ensuring the predominance of
domestic reforms over foreign affairs, and of recalling
the Liberal government from its Egyptian adventures,
204 The Rise of Democracy.
Springing" from whatever motives, the demand of house-
hold suffrage for the counties gathered force and volume
through the years 1880-83, and it was skilfully enforced
by Liberal clubs. But the desire for electoral reform
was not by any means one-sided. The Conservative
party was no more opposed to a well-considered ex-
tension of the suffrage than it had been in the years
1859-1867. Conservative legislation had strengthened
the bonds connecting the party with town artisans;
and their party managers knew perfectly well that the
greater predominance which must be given to London,
to suburban districts, and to counties, would ultimately,
if not immediately, tell in their favour. Events have
fully justified their prescience. On the platform and in
the press there was some approach to unanimity as to
the need of a change. 1 The chief questions raised were
those relating to the method of procedure, though some
public men loudly questioned the desirability of effecting
an important transfer of political power in the midst of
the excitement aroused by Irish troubles and Egyptian
complications.
The last-named questions, however, furnished to the
rank and file of the Liberal party a reason for pushing
on electoral reform. The propelling power was certainly
exerted by Liberal clubs; and the whole movement
therefore presents a complete contrast to the course of
affairs in 1867, when the debates in the House first
aroused any general interest. Now the reverse was
signally the case. In pursuance of resolutions passed
1 "That there must be sooner or later a change in the electoral system
is admitted by all Liberals and almost all Conservatives; and it is hardly
possible for men of sense to avoid the conclusion that an early and final
settlement is from every point of view to be desired. If it be acknowledged
that the situation created by the Act of 1867 cannot be permanently main-
tained, it is clearly wise to remove at once an excuse for perpetual legislative
tinkering and to establish the relations of parties on a permanent basis.
The Conservative elements in English society will not be extinguished by
electoral changes " (Times, Oct. 16. 1883).
The Third Reform Act. 205
by the National Liberal Federation in May, 1883, a great
meeting- of delegates of clubs was held at Leeds in
October to confer on the whole question. The first
resolution, urging the government to bring- in a Reform
Bill in the next session, was passed with enthusiasm,
an amendment moved by Mr. Firth in favour of giving
priority to London municipal reform being- negatived.
Speeches by Mr. Morley, Dr. Dale, and by that sturdy
veteran in the cause of reform, John Bright, made a
great impression. Those of Mr. Morley and Mr. Bright
are noteworthy as advising the separation of the ques-
tions of franchise and redistribution. The latter closed
with a threatening reference to the Lords in case they
resisted the change, or presumed to require the produc-
tion of the scheme of redistribution before the fate of the
Franchise Bill were decided. Mr. Morley, however, ad-
mitted that the Upper House had a "legitimate right",
if they chose to use it, of having the question of redis-
tribution submitted to the constituencies before accepting
the government plan. The precedent of 1866 could cer-
tainly be urged in favour of the claim, which was soon
to be urged by the Lords, that the whole scheme must
be made known before any decisive votes should have
been taken on the Franchise Bill.
We now proceed to notice the details of the Franchise
Bill, which Mr. Gladstone introduced into the House of
Commons on Feb. 5, 1884. He justified the action of
the government on grounds of justice and patriotism.
The strength of a modern state lay in its representative
institutions; and he claimed that the present proposals
would lay the foundations of government broad and
deep in the people's will, and would "array the people
in one solid compacted mass around the ancient throne
which it has loved so well, and round a constitution now
to be more than ever powerful and more than ever free".
The Act of 1832 had added considerably less than half
206 The Rise of Democracy.
a million of voters to the electorate; the immediate
results of the second Reform Act had been to extend
the suffrage by about 1,080,000; while the present bill
would enfranchise no fewer than 2,000,000. This would
be effected mainly by the extension of household suffrage,
and the lodger franchise of 1867, to counties and to
suburban districts previously merged in counties. But
in addition to the lodger vote of 1867 Mr. Gladstone
proposed to create a "service" franchise; that is, he
proposed to accord votes to officials, servants, grooms,
and the like, who occupied rooms or cottages, though
they paid no rent whatever. Turning to the question
of redistribution of seats, he justified its separation from
that of the franchise on the ground that it was infinitely
complex, sectional, and local, while the right of voting
should be determined on broadly national issues ; but he
expressed the "hope" that the more difficult question
might be settled in the following year.
In the debates which followed, Lord Randolph
Churchill objected to the bill as inopportune in a time
of foreign complications, and also on the more general
ground that agricultural labourers were, as a rule, quite
unfitted for the discharge of the same political rights
and duties as the far more intelligent manufacturing
and mining population. Mr. W. H. Smith opposed its
extension to Ireland, where it would lead to a policy of
confiscation of property. On the whole, however, the
opposition fastened on the separation of franchise and
redistribution as the most objectionable feature of the
scheme; and it would be puerile to deny that under
cover of this objection many members cloaked their
designs to thwart both proposals. Despite the almost
open threats to the Lords if they should resist or thwart
these propositions, the Upper House passed Lord Cairns'
amendment, which demanded the association with the
Franchise Bill of proposals for the redistribution of seats.
The Third Reform Act. 207
At once there arose a furious hubbub. Charges and
countercharges hurtled through the air; and the sus-
picions thus aroused imported into our political life
unwonted heat and violence. It was in vain that Mr.
Gladstone proposed the passing of an identical resolu-
tion in each House that the Franchise Bill had been
or would be passed, in reliance on a promise of the
ministry to introduce a Redistribution Bill in the fol-
lowing session. That, exclaimed Lord Salisbury, offered
no guarantee that Mr. Gladstone would not introduce
a wholly objectionable scheme of redistribution, which
he might force down by aid of the Franchise Bill as
soon as it became law. " Show us all your plans, or
we will not pass the first instalment", exclaimed the
Peers and their Tory backers. "No," retorted the
Liberals in effect, "you want us to link both together
that you may defeat both. A two-legged race is not to
our fancy." So the conflict raged. The welkin of Mid-
lothian again re-echoed with oratory. Demonstrations,
threatening the ending or mending of the House of
Lords, darkened squares and market-places; pam-
phleteers and editors raked up the precedents of 1866
to prove anything and everything; the constitution tot-
tered.
But amidst all the racket the small voice of common
sense began to whisper of compromise. As has been
already shown, the two parties were by no means irre-
concilably opposed on the principle of the proposed
measures. Uncompromising divergence of aims char-
acterized only the intransigeants of each side, and the
tacticians who saw in the conflict a means of abolishing
the Upper House. But these feelings were confined to
a few. The passions of the moderate men on both sides
were hardly so inflamed as to defy the appeals of reason.
Their resentment had been aroused by the suspicion that
their opponents were working to outwit or overreach
208 The Rise of Democracy.
them. The occasion evidently called for the services of
two or three "honest brokers", and these now quietly
arranged the conditions for a conference of the leading
men on both sides. 1 When rhetoric yielded place to
reason the whole thing was found to be capable of ar-
rangement. The private conferences held between Mr.
Gladstone, Lord Hartington, and Sir Charles Dilke on
the one side, and Lord Salisbury and Sir Stafford North-
cote as leaders of the opposition, unravelled the parlia-
mentary tangle. The Upper House now agreed to pass
the Franchise Bill on its second reading, with the under-
standing that the forthcoming Redistribution Bill should
be made "the subject of friendly communications". 2
The committee stage of the Franchise Bill and its third
reading were postponed, in the House of Lords, until
the Redistribution of Seats Bill had been introduced by
Mr. Gladstone into the House of Commons.
The general principles of this second very important
measure were now explained by the premier. Without
adopting the scheme of equal electoral districts, the
Redistribution Bill aimed at bringing about approximate
equality of representation ; but there was to be little or no
abolition of historic names, such as had moved the fears
of the opposition. Towns containing fewer than 15,000
inhabitants were, for electoral purposes, to be merged in
the county districts to which in most cases they demised
their names. Towns where the population ranged
between 15,000 and 50,000 were to return one member
only. These changes liberated 160 seats, in addition to
which six seats, previously declared vacant for bribery,
1 In Mr. Andrew Lang's Life of Lord Iddesleigh, vol. ii. pp. 205-215, the
details will be found. First the Duke of Richmond, and, later, Lord
Norton, hinted at a meeting of the leaders. Lord Iddesleigh (then Sir
Stafford Northcote), in a secret interview with Mr. Gladstone at St. James's
Palace, helped to clear away misunderstandings. The separation of sub-
urban and rural districts was desired by both. Other difficulties, viz. those
of procedure, were also removed, and asperities were smoothed dow:>,
2 For details, see Hansard, Nov. 17, 18, 1884.
The Third Reform Act. 209
were to ; be revived. These six were to go to England.
Scotland received an increase of twelve members, while
the number of members for Wales and Ireland remained
unchanged. As a result, the membership of the House
of Commons was raised from 658 to 670. Further, the
principle of single -member divisions was generally
adopted, 1 a decision which drew an unavailing protest
from the champions of proportional representation, Mr.
Courtney and Sir John Lubbock. In vain did they point
out that the minute subdivisions of towns and counties
would frequently distort the verdict of the town or
county as a whole. The single-member plan evidently
had the merit of being simpler, and therefore of being
more easily worked by a half-educated electorate, and
the cause to which John Stuart Mill had devoted his
energies was accordingly shelved, as in 1867. The
result is that the 670 members of Parliament are now
mostly elected in a multitude of small areas, where local
or parochial concerns frequently overshadow the larger
national questions which are presumed to be solely
under consideration.
Apart from this defect, which perhaps may be to some
extent remedied by the spread of education and growth
of intelligence, the Redistribution Bill may be regarded as
effecting an important and satisfactory change. For the
first time London and the new industrial centres received
their due share of political power, which hitherto had
been absorbed by petty townships of the south and east.
In place of 22 members, London and its vast suburban
districts were to return 62; and the numbers allotted
to the chief towns were as follows : Liverpool, 9 ; Man-
chester and Salford, 9; Glasgow, 7; Birmingham, 7;
Leeds, 5; Sheffield, 5; Edinburgh, Dublin, Belfast, and
Bristol, 4 each; and so on. Equally great were the
1 The exceptions were the City of London, and towns of from 50,000 to
165,000 inhabitants, which were to return two members apiece.
(M416) O
210 The Rise of Democracy.
gains to the manufacturing counties, Yorkshire return-
ing 26 members, and Lancashire 23, apart from those
sent up by their towns. Even so, the voting power of
London and the great towns of England is not relatively
so great as that of distant country districts, especially
those of Ireland. But, as was asserted by Mr. Gladstone,
the very remoteness and sparseness of population of
those districts constituted a claim for departing from a
strictly numerical basis. The great towns could well
look after themselves, because "the actual political
power in these concentrated masses is sharper, quicker,
and more vehement".
In many respects the Franchise Act of 1884 and the
Redistribution of Seats Act of 1885 are the most impor-
tant measures of the century. Their significance can
only be fully realized by the student who has traced the
course of the democratic movements of the previous
generations. Manhood suffrage and equal electoral dis-
tricts, two of the claims of Major Cartwright and his
reform committee of 1780, and, later, two of the points
of the original People's Charter, were now approximately
secured. The extension of prosperity to the poorer
classes has brought the position of holder of a tenement,
or of a lodger, within the reach of all who can by any
stretch of the imagination be regarded as capable of
the intelligent discharge of political duties. Indeed,
the experience of recent years would seem to show that
among the newly enfranchised classes the very poor give
a fitful and almost unreasoning adherence to either party,
and cause those swift and apparently unaccountable
vacillations which are the despair of responsible poli-
ticians and the joy of "wreckers".
While the approach to manhood suffrage has been as
close as any friends of political stability could wish, the
approximation to equal electoral districts has been less
pronounced. The desire to spare historic towns was
The Third Reform Act. 211
prompted by a no less amiable feeling than that which
perpetuated old names and areas wherever possible. As
a result, the new county divisions may be regarded as a
far more satisfactory compromise between the old and
the new, between tradition and modern needs, than the
singularly uninteresting departmental divisions imposed
on France by the rigorously mathematical democrats of
1789. The different methods employed are characteristic
of French and English democracy. No less noteworthy
is the peaceful character of the transition to a new
electoral system, which forty years earlier had been
declared to be subversive of the constitution and of the
rights of property. This fact is another signal instance
of the adaptive powers of the English parliamentary
system. In 1848 it seemed as impossible that any House
of Commons should ever pass the substance of the
People's Charter as, in 1830, that the borough-mongers'
Parliament should pronounce sentence of death on Old
Sarum. Yet both agitations achieved an almost blood-
less triumph through the very Parliament which was
denounced as corrupt or imperfect. Never surely has
the wit of man devised any scheme which, while subject-
ing all proposals to salutary sifting and delay, has so
persistently left the door of hope ajar in view of the
multitude which sought admittance. If, as the critic of
democracy asserts, 1 satisfaction and impatience, "the
two great sources of political conduct", were reasonably
satisfied by our older electoral system, surely it may be
admitted that the Acts of 1884-85 gave a reasonably
tardy and cautiously incomplete gratification to the aims
and desires cherished by democrats for two or three
generations.
Limits of space preclude any attempt at a detailed
examination of the legislation which resulted more or
less directly from the Acts of 1884-85. Nor, indeed, has
1 Sir H. Maine's Popular Government.
212 The Rise of Democracy.
the time come when any such attempt can be essayed
with satisfactory results. The general election of 1885
showed how strong were the feelings of agricultural
labourers in favour of drastic agrarian reforms. While
Conservative triumphs in the boroughs were surprisingly
numerous, the voice of the two millions of enfranchised
voters was given with no uncertain sound for the policy
of small holdings. As a result, 334 Liberals, 250 Con-
servatives, and 86 Irish Home Rulers, came up to
Westminster; and the makeshift government of Lord
Salisbury was ejected by the adoption of an amendment
to the address expressing regret that there was no men-
tion of allotments for labourers (Jan. 1886). But a
surprise was in store. Mr. Gladstone, instead of basing
the existence of his new government on the agricultural
questions which had brought it to power, suddenly
executed a strategic right turn towards Mr. Parnell's
following. This action speedily ruptured the Liberal
party, and brought about a new grouping in the political
kaleidoscope. On the defeat of the first Home Rule
Bill, Mr. Gladstone appealed to the country, which
retorted by electing 316 Conservatives, 191 Liberal
Home Rulers, 78 Liberal Unionists, and 85 Irish Home
Rulers. The alliance between Conservatives and Liberal
Unionists, the latter led by Lord Hartington and Mr.
Chamberlain, has had the effect of completing the politi-
cal education of the Tory party, which Sir Robert Peel
and Mr. Disraeli had so strenuously commenced.
Opportunism, introduced by the Act of 1867, now
rushed in like a flood and began to obliterate the old
party landmarks. The democratic principle was for-
mally adopted by Lord Salisbury's government in its
very important Local Government Bill of 1888, which
introduced into counties and a few large boroughs (in-
cluding London) an electoral system based on household
suffrage. For the first time in our history since the
The Third Reform Act. 213
decay of the old folk-moots, county affairs were placed
on a completely popular basis; and the government of
London regained the democratic character which it had
lost since the perversion of the mediaeval trade gilds
from their primitive uses. The Gladstone ministry in
1893 introduced a bill, which was passed in the following
year, extending the elective principle to rural parishes
having a population of 300 or more. All householders
were to have votes in the parish meeting, which was to
be summoned at least once a year. The parochial coun-
cillors, having been elected by ballot, were to discharge
nearly all the functions of the old vestry meeting a
stunted survival of the old Saxon hundred-moot. The
new council deals with sanitary affairs, can acquire land
for allotments or for recreation, and may under certain
conditions found a free library. It is, in fact, an adapta-
tion of the old democratic hundred-moot to the needs of
the present age.
A survey of the political history of this century seems
to prove that there is an irresistible tendency in the
English people to hark back to the earlier conditions of
the national life. Sometimes it is the result of a con-
scious adoption of an earlier programme, as when the
more intelligent Chartists justified their demands by
reference to those of 1780; while the reformers of 1780
had also appealed to the venerable charters of English
liberties. In those cases the recurrence to earlier pre-
cedents was deliberate and avowed. In other instances,
similar conduct has been the outcome of the unconscious
but imperious instincts of a sturdy stock, which in the
long run repels all the warping influences of Feudalism,
and reverts to the old Saxon ways. This is at once the
paradox and the salvation of English political life, that
even its innovating efforts tend to the conservation or
reconstruction of the old national and local institutions.
The Rise of Democracy.
Chapter XIV.
Democracy and Labour.
Though it is impossible to review the whole area of
legislative activity since the inauguration of a new epoch
by the Acts of 1884-85, yet it seems desirable to examine
the bearing of the new developments on two very im-
portant spheres of our national life, labour legislation
and foreign policy. On the satisfaction of the very
diverse and often antagonistic demands which confront
the British government in industrial life and in foreign
relations, must chiefly depend the future of this people.
In attempting to review the course of recent industrial
legislation it will be well at the outset to examine the
question in the light of the events of 1830-1850. The
persistence of national character, and even the tenacity
with which working-men have clung to earlier aims and
methods, will probably furnish a clue as to the meaning
of present developments. What, then, were the aims
which inspired artisan leaders in the period just named?
Were those men communists and levellers ; or did they
seek practical means for the redress of definite griev-
ances?
It may be urged that Chartism was closely connected
with Robert Owen's propaganda and that of Hodgkin,
the former of whom expressly claimed for his scheme a
world-wide application ; also that several of the Chartists
retained to the end the regenerating and levelling theories
which they learnt from those thinkers. That statement
is only partly correct. Lovett, Hetherington, and a few
other moral-force Chartists were at first disciples of
Owen ; and the latter strongly avowed in his Poor Man's
Guardian that all distinctions of rank and property must
be swept away. The prime impulse which drove Lovett
Democracy and Labour. 215
and Hetherington into Radicalism was undoubtedly the
teaching" of Owen and Hodgicin, which promised a speedy
and effectual cure for the prevalent misery. But before
the definite revival of the old democratic programme in
the People's Charter, these two able artisan leaders had
seen the error of their ways. Lovett broke away from
his teacher in order to found a co-operative society on
practical lines, and openly renounced the follies of
Owenism; 1 while Hetherington, on the decease of his
acrid print in 1835, found it desirable to commence
another which contained more news and fewer diatribes
against property. Many other proofs might be cited in
proof of the declining popularity of Owen's and Hodg-
kin's ideas about that time. 2 The introduction to the
People's Charter drawn up by Lovett, conveys no hint
that any redistribution of property was aimed at. The
first number of O'Connor's Northern Star, as we have
seen in chapter v., dangled before working--men the
prospect of equality with their richer neighbours and of
a "respectable provision" for "every unwilling idler in
the state ". But even this vaguely alluring- programme
was afterwards tacitly shelved, and the only practical
result was the very harmless Land Scheme, which may be
regarded as the precursor of "three acres and a cow".
The evidence points directly to the fact that the mass of
our people, even amidst the misery of the thirties and
forties, were ultimately repelled rather than attracted by
1 In Appendix I. to his able work The Labour Problem (1896) Mr. G.
Drage, M. P. , seems to me to assign too much importance to the supposed
levelling schemes of the early Chartists. In support of his views he quotes
a few phrases from the address sent by the London Working-men's Associa-
tion to Belgian artisans as to the producers of wealth having the first claim
to its enjoyment. But, as Lovett shows in his Autobiography, this was in
1836, and was called forth by special circumstances ; and on page 45 he
states why he gave up communism, though he clung to the co-operative
production of wealth.
8 See my article on "The Unstamped Press, 1815-36", in the English
Historical Review of October, 1897, which shows the small circulation of
Owenite and other " levelling" papers.
216 The Rise of Democracy.
the levelling theories advocated more or less openly by
Spence, Robert Owen, and Hodgkin. Enthusiasts like
Lovett, Hetherington, and Bronterre O'Brien, who at
first disseminated these notions, were gradually brought,
either by their own better sense or by that strange yet
almost unerring instinct which guides our people on
these subjects, to abandon them altogether, or to embody
them in practical demands, such as that for the due
taxation of wealth, which have finally been adopted by
responsible statesmen.
This fact is of the utmost importance. In a time of
the keenest distress, rendered additionally acute by the
Corn-law and the Poor-law, English artisans turned away
from the theorists who were demanding a reconstruction
of society and a redistribution of property, and threw
their weight almost wholly into a movement which aimed
first and foremost at effecting through Parliament a
remedy of their worst grievances. Well may Carlyle
praise John Bull because, "after infinite tumblings and
spoken platitudes innumerable from barrel-heads and
parliament-benches, he does settle down somewhere
about the just conclusion: you are certain that his
jumblings and tumblings will end, after years or cen-
turies, in stable equilibrium ". Truly so, to an extent of
which the seer of Chelsea could not have dreamed. No
other people has gone through such miseries, and these
too enhanced by law, and has listened to the siren voice
of confiscation, without heading straight for the rocks.
The bearing of this on existing political conditions is
fairly obvious. The people of the United States have been
declared to be the despair of extreme socialists. Their
individualism, their sense of what is due to individual
enterprise and liberty, whether during life or in the right
of bequest to posterity, is so keen that it throws off even
the most potent arguments drawn from the armoury of
Karl Marx. This is after all not surprising, consider-
Democracy and Labour. 217
ing how pleasant are the places in which their lines are
cast, and how much of the total result is due to the
energy and ingenuity of individuals. But the marvel is
that in our old overcrowded country, where the landlords
lived at ease on broad domains while the many toiled
for a pittance in noisome townships and reeking- factories,
where the few made laws which pressed hard on the
many, yet there was no war of classes, no general rush
for division of land or distribution of wealth, but a
steady resolve to use the law to mend the law, and to
regain for the masses that grip on the People's House
which had been the bulwark of the nation's liberties.
But, while discarding the viewy schemes of Owen,
our artisans always regarded political rights as a means
of bettering their position by practical reforms. It was
natural that they should look on politics from this
practical stand-point. To gain a vote meant to regain
part at least of the creature comforts which had been
lost amid the shifting scenes of nineteenth-century life.
Time was when some of them had been well-to-do wool-
combers or hand-loom weavers ; l perchance their fathers
had been freeholders in the county, and had been courted
and bribed for their votes as assiduously as the stout
yeoman in the village election scene depicted by Hogarth.
At any rate, they had heard about the good old times
before the great war, when prices were cheap, work was
regular, and wages were good. Why, then, should
they, the sons, sink to the position of drudges without
rights and privileges, because fate had doomed them to
work in a township for a master who knew them not?
Such were the notions dimly hovering in the minds of
the wage-earners, impelling them to demand the fran-
1 " Lancashire was once a particularly loyal county. A call was made on
their patriotism to repel the gigantic power of Bonaparte: 30,000 volunteers
stepped forward, and upwards of 20,000 were hand-loom weavers. . . Dare
any government now call upon the services of such a people living upon
three shillings a week?" (Part. Report 0/1834).
2t8 The Rise of Democracy.
chise as a means of redressing the balance which the
statesman and the engineer had tilted against them.
Viewing the matter morally and historically, their action
was completely justifiable. The details presented in my
first chapter prove that the industrial and agricultural
changes which rendered the first half of this century for
ever memorable depressed the status of the poor even
while they enhanced the wealth of the community. On
the ground of justice and even of expediency the wage-
earners might accordingly claim every consideration
from the community in respect to all their worst griev-
ances. These were an oppressive taxation, unhealthy
conditions both in the cottage and the factory, inability
to gain compensation for injury incurred while in the
employer's service, and inadequate return for the long
hours of labour. It was for the redress of these practical
grievances that British artisans claimed the franchise,
and not for the establishment of an ideal society or for
the levelling of incomes. The close connection between
industrial wrongs and the growth of Chartism is every-
where obvious. Fed on the misery of 1837-42, the
movement declined after that date, except where bitter
and prolonged strikes went against the men. Reviving
in 1847-48 amidst the trade depression, lock-outs, and
reduction of wages of those years, it was lulled to rest
by the gold discoveries and commercial prosperity which
marked the next decade. 1 Workmen who had gained
their immediate needs, regular work and better wages,
could afford to wait for the future, which indeed has
brought far more than any of them ever conceived in the
important changes that we will now briefly examine.
It is a curious fact, but easily capable of proof, that
1 The evidence afforded by the Chartist Convention of 1848 on this point
is conclusive. Nearly all the speakers urged that the general misery com-
pelled a forward movement. Only the Edinburgh delegate said that his
constituents were not poverty-stricken Chartists, but " Chartists from prin-
ciple ". See Gammage, The Chartist Movement, p. 303 (edit of 1894).
Democracy and Labour. 219
the first demand for interference between the employer
and employed came from philanthropists and benevolent
employers, not from the workmen themselves. The
earliest Factory Acts, those of 1802 and 1819, were the
result of representations made by local authorities and
by enlightened masters, among whom were the first
Sir Robert Peel and Robert Owen, as to the miserable
state of the children and young people employed in many
factories. Of all Robert Owen's actions none was more
beneficent than his endeavour by legislation to extend to
all factories some of the benefits which he freely accorded
to his work-people at New Lanark. Though meeting with
only limited success, his example stimulated the action of
others, even though they totally disagreed with the other
features of his political and social creed. Lord Ashley
(afterwards Lord Shaftesbury), and Messrs. Sadler, Oast-
ler, and Stephens, were the next champions of the
factory hands. All four were Tories of the old school,
resolute opponents of Whig manufacturers and laisser-
faire economists; and their efforts, aided by those of
Mr. Fielden, a man who had raised himself from the
ranks to be a wealthy manufacturer and Radical member
for Oldham, were chiefly instrumental in gaining the
Acts of 1833, 1844, and 1847. The last of these, limit-
ing the work of all young persons and women to 10 hours
a day and 58 a week, crowned with success the efforts
of influential men who for nearly twenty years had
chivalrously been pleading the cause of the weak and
helpless. The arguments of Lord Ashley and his coad-
jutors were based mainly on moral grounds, though they
were careful to show that previous reductions of the hours
of labour, while raising the quality of the work, had not
sensibly diminished the output. 1 The Ten Hours Act,
together with the Mines Act of 1842, marks the close of
iSee Lord Shaftesbury's speeches in House of Commons, March 15,
May 10, 1844, and January 29, 1846, in his volume of Speeches (1868).
220 The Rise of Democracy.
what may be termed patriarchal legislation on this sub-
ject. Other acts, it is true, especially those resulting
from the royal commission of 1862-66, for which Lord
Shaftesbury had moved, extended the area of state pro-
tection to women and to young persons working in
workshops. But the working of Tory Socialism received
its most striking illustration in the earlier Acts, which
were so largely due to the untiring energy and noble
zeal of Lord Shaftesbury.
The evidence adduced by him before the royal com-
missions of inquiry seems to have aroused the attention
of working-men to the advantages which they themselves
might procure through the reduction of the hours of
labour of women and young persons ; and the conviction
spread that legislation might and must be attempted for
men. This notion, all but dormant before 1837, was
vitalized by the misery of the following years, when the
labour question leapt to life in something resembling its
present form. Strikes there had been, of course, before
1837, but none so well organized or so desperately fought
as those of 1842 and 1843 in the textile, iron, and coal
industries. For the present, most of the workers re-
venged themselves for defeat by supporting the Chartists;
but their prudent members began to turn their attention
more to labour questions than to an ultra -democratic
franchise. For, after all, what was the value of a vote
to most of them except to redress their most crying
grievances? And if other means would work as effectu-
ally and far more speedily, why not adopt them rather
than the "six points"? Why not try Trade-unionism
rather than Chartism? The former movement brought
a direct pressure to bear on the employer; while the
latter staked all on the attainment of the points as a
prelude to parliamentary interference. If many of their
best friends looked askance at the Charter, obviously it
was the best policy to drop the parliamentary question
Democracy and Labour. 221
for the time and trust to those instincts of self-help which
are fortunately so strong" in the breast of every Briton.
As the capture of the strikes of 1842-43 by the physical-
force Chartists had done harm both to Trade-unionism
and to Chartism, surely it was better for Trade-unionists
to leave the points to shift for themselves and to look
after the sufficiently complex interests of the several
trades. Such were the motives which after 1843 tended
to separate the labour questions of the time from the dis-
tinctively parliamentary programme of the ultra-Radicals.
After the temporary collapse of the latter in 1848 the
self-help movement, whether trade-unionist or co-opera-
tive, received valued help from the advocacy of King-sley,
Maurice, and other far-seeing friends of the working-
classes, and ceased, for the time at least, to have any
close connection with the franchise question. This,
apparently, was one reason why the Chartist and Radical
cause remained all but stationary in the ensuing- years,
until the fervour of a few statesmen and the intrigues of
parties placed within reach of town artisans the weapon
of household suffrage for which they had vainly struggled
in the "forties".
It is now fairly clear that the granting- of this impor-
tant political right by Disraeli's Act of 1867 decided the
whole future of Trade-unionism. The year 1867 was
indeed a critical one. Public opinion was deeply incensed
by the trade-union outrages at Sheffield. Men listened
only to the sordid details of bullying", rattening 1 , explosion
and murder, forgetting- that these acts were largely due
to the laws which banned Trade-unionism and allowed
prejudiced judges to class as conspiracy all attempts
peacefully to persuade workmen to a strike. Fortunately
for all parties the searching- parliamentary inquiry, which
was held in 1867-69, revealed not only the sensational
details of outrage, but the leg-alized injustice under which
workmen in many of the cutlery trades suffered. It
222 The Rise of Democracy.
condemned the law as well as the law-breaker. Further-
more, it showed that what Hallamshire needed was not
less but more Trade-unionism. Outrages had been
most rife in the trades which, for various reasons, had
not been able fully to organize themselves. Completer
organization was proved to have been accompanied by
diminution of the use of brute force. Combination of
the workers in legal trade-unions was therefore presum-
ably a means of substituting more peaceful methods for
the dastardly acts by which small groups of desperate
men thought to better their position. Such a combina-
tion would at least provide a recognized channel for
negotiations between masters and men in case of dispute.
The inquiry would certainly not have been so favour-
able to the workers had they not recently been en-
franchised. As their votes were now of vast importance,
it was evidently desirable to conciliate them. The change
in the tenor of the inquiry between 1867 and 1869 suffi-
ciently shows that not only conviction as to the justice
of the claims of labour, but the desire to catch the
labour vote, played a part in the deliberations at West-
minster. Beginning with a general conviction of the need
of repressive legislation, the inquiry ended with recom-
mendations generally favourable to Trade-unionism. 1
This soothing policy led to a marked change in labour
questions. As Parliament now held the stirrup, it only
remained for Trade-unionism lightly to vault into the
saddle. One or two preliminary steps were alone
necessary. The first was to form an annual Trade-
union Congress, as was done in 1868. The next was
to form the parliamentary committee of the Trade-union
Congress, which is elected on the last day of the congress
for the purpose of influencing labour legislation. The
fruits of this activity were soon obvious. In 1871 came
the act which gave to trade-unions a definite legal status
i Schulze-Gaevernitz, Social Peace, p. 97.
Democracy and Labour. 223
such as they had never previously enjoyed, and enabled
them to prosecute fraudulent officials. Four years later,
under a Conservative ministry, the law was modified in
a sense even more favourable to trade-unionists. The
Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act withdrew
trade-unions from the class of suspected organizations,
and conceded to them the right of using all peaceful
means of persuasion even at the time of a strike. Indeed,
a prominent champion of the cause admitted that the
two statutes of 1871 and 1875 "constituted a great and
generous measure of justice which none of us expected". 1
As a result, Trade-unionism soon lost the violence which
goes hand in hand with illegality, and which therefore
characterizes the cognate movement on the Continent.
Nothing is more gratifying than the orderly and law-
abiding spirit generally characteristic of English trade-
union delegates, as contrasted with the anarchic out-
bursts of their continental brethren.
But while English Trade-unionism has been law-abid-
ing, it has also been exceedingly active in moulding the
law to its will. Some little time elapsed before the
mass of workmen realized the full extent of the powers
freely conceded to them by Parliament; but after grasp-
ing the facts of the situation, they have struggled for
and obtained privileges which their forefathers would
have deemed impossible. The way had also been pre-
pared for them in 1864 and 1867 by factory legislation
limiting the hours of labour for women and young per-
sons to fifty-six per week. This restriction of time for
women and young persons naturally aided the men in
their endeavours to gain a similar boon ; and as a matter
of fact, before the year 1880 in most industries the men's
hours were fewer than the legal maximum for women.
Previous to the year 1889 there was little if any de-
iMr. H. Crompton: quoted in Appendix C of Howell's Handy Book of
the Labour Laws (1876).
224 The Rise of Democracy.
mand for universal legislation on the subject of hours of
work. The cry for an eight -hours day for all trades
constitutes a new and very significant departure. Par-
liament, it is true, had legislated for children, young
persons, and for women, working in factories and work-
shops. But factory legislation for adult males was a
very different matter, especially after 1867, when they
had votes and were organized in powerful unions. The
men of grit and independence who had fought the battles
of Trade-unionism in the past protested against whole-
sale parliamentary interference on complex questions
which had hitherto been decided between the masters
and the trade-unions themselves. Such complete re-
liance on Parliament would, they maintained, cut the
ground from under Trade-unionism; for what was the
need of the unions, if their knowledge of the complex
and shifting requirements of the several trades was
all to be set aside in favour of an arbitrary code framed
at Westminster? The demand for an eight-hours day
by the fiat of Parliament might possibly be successful
in the long run; but it would imply the abdication of
Trade-unionism in favour of a State Socialism of the
most rigid description.
In spite of these warnings the cry for a universal
Eight Hours Bill grew in intensity and volume. It
seems to have been powerfully influenced by a remark-
able Socialist propaganda undertaken by the Fabian
Society in and after 1886. That society, then abandon-
ing the cautious methods which its name seemed to
imply, entered the arena of party politics. Under the
generalship of Mr. Sidney Webb, 1 the Fabians girded
themselves for the conflict by forming a parliamentary
committee somewhat on the same lines as that of the
Trade-union Congress. The duties of this new body
were "to organize Socialist opinion, and to bring pres-
1 Fabian Tract, No. 41.
Democracy and Labour. 225
sure to bear upon Parliament, municipalities, and other
representative bodies". Labour legislation of a more
drastic type than trade-unionists had hitherto favoured,
occupied a prominent place in the new propaganda; and
there can be no doubt that the demand for an eight-
hours day was largely due to the vigorous agitation
thus inaugurated. The Labour movement speedily felt
the effect of the new agitation and assumed the militant
form known as the New Unionism. Among the many
topics which separate it from the older trade organiza-
tions the most prominent is reliance on state control,
which, as we have seen, had previously been viewed
with distrust or dislike. It is questionable whether the
new movement would have secured much support but
for the worldly wisdom which associated it with the
alluring programme of a universal eight- hours day.
Not that this was mooted in its entirety at the outset.
At first it was proposed for all men employed by govern-
ment, by municipalities, and by other governing bodies.
Next it was held out to miners, and secured the adhesion
of the newly- formed National Federation of Miners.
Finally, the proposal was brought up at the Trade-union
Congress of 1890, in the following decisive form: that
"steps should be taken to reduce the working hours
in all trades to eight hours per day, or a maximum of
forty-eight per week; and while recognizing the power
and influence of trade organizations, it is of opinion that
the speediest and best method to obtain this reduction
for the workers generally is by parliamentary enact-
ment ". This wholesale regimentation of trades by Par-
liament was opposed by the delegate of the Durham
miners, who moved that the "eight-hours day should
be secured at once by such trades as may desire it";
but the champions of universal legislation carried the
day by a majority of 8 in a meeting of 354 delegates. 1
1 Howell's Trade Unionism, New and Old, p. 174.
(H416) F
226 The Rise of Democracy.
Not satisfied with throwing down the gauntlet, the
challenge became more sweeping and stringent. In its
extreme form, the proposal is that in every trade and
district, work shall in no case exceed eight hours a day,
or a total of forty-eight a week, overtime and extra pay
being entirely prohibited. The fortunes of this pro-
gramme have been instructive. The first efforts to
reduce it to practice were made by the industry which
claims the utmost consideration and sympathy. If any
calling demands close and careful regulation by the State
it is that which involves the discomfort and risk, the
strain on muscle and brain, imposed on hewers of coal.
Accordingly, an Eight Hours Bill was drafted on behalf
of the colliers for 1892, when it was found that out of
the five miners' representatives in the House of Com-
mons three refused to support it. The reasons for this
refusal are to be found in the sturdy independence of
the Northumberland and Durham miners, who, having
by their own associations and indomitable energy im-
measurably improved their position, were not desirous
of outside control. Their experience of the working of
the well-meant Coal Mines Regulation Act of 1887 was
not wholly favourable. As has recently been proved by
the evidence forthcoming at the Labour Commission, they
found the limitation of the hours of work for boys pro-
duced a scarcity of boys, which hampered the work of the
highly-paid hewers. When the majority of men in one
of the most important coal-fields rejected further govern-
ment interference, it was only natural that the House of
Commons should reject the Eight Hours Bill of 1892,
as it did by a decisive majority of 112. The opposition
of the Tynesiders has accordingly retarded the accept-
ance of a universal Eight Hours Bill, even by the indus-
try which seemed most to require it.
Into the balance of evidence for and against the
general proposal for an eight-hours day it is impossible
Democracy and Labour. 227
here to enter. 1 It is noteworthy, however, that the action
of the miners themselves has tended to check the con-
clusions somewhat hastily recorded at the Trade-union
Congresses of 1890-1892; and the sifting- process, which
forms a needful stage in every movement, was carried
still further in the inquiry held by the Parliamentary
Labour Commission of 1892-1894. The advantage of
cross-examination over rhetoric has never been more
strikingly illustrated than in the gradual weakening- of
the case for a universal Eight Hours Bill when sifted by
the royal commission. The inquiry revealed not only
the complexity of the problem, but the opposing- nature
of the claims urg-ed on its behalf. Those who desired
to raise wages stated that the change would not check
production, and consequently would not absorb the
unemployed ; while those who benevolently desired to
absorb the unemployed into the ranks of regular workers
claimed that an eight-hours day would not increase the
cost of production. Here, then, the question stands for
the present.
One further result of the inquiry may also be noted.
Such enthusiastic champions of collectivism as Mr.
Sidney Webb and Mr. Tom Mann have implicitly, if not
explicitly, conceded the impracticability of a wholesale
regimentation of industry by national law. In his
evidence given before the Commission, Mr. Mann ad-
mitted that it would be advisable that exemptions be
granted when claimed by a local council composed of
employers and workmen, and that a three-fifths majority
of the adult workers in a trade should be necessary to
set in motion the local administrative machinery charge-
able with the working of the measure. Mr. Sidney Webb
1 See Labour Commission of 1892-94, fifth report ; also Mr. Drage's The
Labour Problem, pp. 94-129, Mr. Rae's Eight Hours for Work, Mr. S.
Webb's The Eight -Hours Day, Mr. Speyer's The Labour Commission
(1894), and Eight Hours by Law (Fabian Tract, No. 48). In the last, a
compromise called Trade Inquiry is recommended.
228 The Rise of Democracy.
also conceded the principle of local option for the smaller
industries, but asserted the need of general legislation
for the hours of labour in the staple industries of the
land, and of its execution by a department of the state.
The general impression produced by the evidence
before the Labour Commission would seem to be that the
interests and customs of localities, and even of different
sections of the same industry, are too diverse to be ruled
into line by a universal Eight Hours Bill. Many of the
delegates of trade-unions who spoke in its favour evi-
dently regarded it with apprehension in view of the
severity of foreign competition, though others took the
bull by the horns, and declared that the quality of work
would be so much improved by knocking off an hour, or
half an hour, as to afford the best, indeed the only, means
of meeting foreign competition. Few persons would
now deny that the reduction of the excessively long
hours of work of the previous generation has improved
the quality of work without reducing its quantity. The
same may be granted with respect to the abolition of
work before breakfast in some industries where the
strain on brain and muscle is very great, and in cases
where operatives have worked loyally and heartily under
the new conditions. But it does not follow that an
Eight Hours Bill would enable us to meet foreign
competition. German masters, who closely watch our
industrial affairs, show no great desire to shorten the
hours of work, as they would assuredly have done if
the argument as to the improved efficiency produced by
short hours were completely sound and generally appli-
cable. It would certainly be gratifying if the results of
recent reductions of hours in our land were so uniformly
favourable as to induce our continental rivals to curtail
the length of their working day in the hope of compass-
ing the ruin of England!
The value of a searching investigation by means of a
Democracy and Labour. 229
royal commission has rarely been more illustrated than
in the question before us. The tendency of the new
electorate, now that it has fully grasped the extent of
its powers, is very naturally to call for wholesale
remedies, in the fond belief that they will speedily pro-
duce the results aimed at. Not until twenty years had
elapsed from the granting of household suffrage was
any distinctly able and energetic move made towards
the realization of State Socialism. After 1887 the move
developed almost into a rush. Trade-unionism of the
old well-established type, which accepted the wage-
system as a final fact, capable of being modified only by
the combined action of workers in the several industries,
was threatened with deposition by the so-called New
Unionism. This latter-day development was the off-
spring of the discontent created by the industrial stagna-
tion of the eighties and of the new school of practical
Socialism above referred to. It aimed at the capture of
existing unions, or the formation of new unions, the
latter to be merely "fighting machines", unencumbered
by the provident clubs to which the older unionists had
attached much importance. But the new unions were to
be more than industrial fighting machines : they were to
aid in the capture of Parliament and of projected local
assemblies by labour representatives, who should exploit
capitalistic industry in the interest of the workers. The
socialistic aims of the more advanced labour leaders were
set forth in the programme of the Independent Labour
Party, which was formed in January, 1892. Despite its
colourless title, the party put forward claims to "the
collective ownership and control of the means of produc-
tion, distribution, and exchange". Mr. Keir Hardie was
the only successful candidate for parliamentary honours
who went to the poll on this programme in 1892; and
in 1895 he failed to hold his seat. At the last general
election thirty Independent Labour candidates failed to
230 The Rise of Democracy.
capture a single seat among them ; l but they find
some consolation in the fact that 12*1 per cent of the
electors in those constituencies voted for the socialist
ticket.
Hitherto this programme has gained only a meagre
success. The reasons for the check suffered by it after
the first triumphs of 1889-1892 are not easy to assign.
The following suggestions are offered tentatively as
explaining some at least of the tendencies of recent social
and political developments. In the first place, it must
be observed that the New Unionism had prospered on
the discontent which inevitably accompanies stagnation
of trade. Weary of uncertainty of employment and
threatened reductions of wages, men naturally grasped
at the new forward policy ; and in the case of the famous
strike of the London dockers for their "tanner" a day
extra, and of the colliers in 1893, the new fighting policy
gained a striking success. But the terrible sufferings en-
dured by the colliers in the effort to prevent a temporary
reduction naturally tended to sober the victors, and
therefore to bring the New Unionism more into line with
the older trade organizations. Moreover, the very
aggressiveness of the new movement had tended to
magnify its difficulties by compelling masters to unite
and federate in self-defence. Instead of attacking single
masters, it was now confronted with powerful federations
of masters, who could weather the storms of a crisis or
endure the even more trying torpor of depression by the
aid of resources which neither the old unions nor the
new could hope to rival. 2 Besides, had not the old
1 Mr. John Burns, M.P. for Battersea, is not included in this number.
2 As Mr. Mallock has shown in his Labour and the Popular Welfare, bk.
iv. chapter 4, the power of the employer to resist a trade-union increases
in proportion as the demands of the latter trench more closely on the
margin of profit. The amount of trade-union funds decreased by 237,545
in the year 1893, mainly owing to the great coal strike. See Mr. Brabrook's
"Progress of Friendly Societies in 1884-1894", in Statistical Society 's Journal
of 1895.
Democracy and Labour. 231
unions enormously improved the conditions of their
members by steady insistence and dexterous bargain-
ing-; and would it not be better to follow more in their
steps than to pursue a policy which would deplete their
own funds and array capital in a solid phalanx against
them?
Among other causes tending to give pause to the New
Unionism must also be reckoned the increasing efficacy
of self-help organizations, whether working in connec-
tion with, or on lines parallel to, the older trade-unions.
Self-help was again slowly but surely reasserting its
former influence over our wage-earning classes, as was
shown by official statistics. It is true that the Liberator
crash had seriously affected the position of building
societies ; but despite that terrible blow to the cause of
self-help, the funds of savings-banks, friendly societies,
&c., showed in 1894 a net increase of ^60,008,834 over
those of the year I884. 1 If progress so substantial had
been made in a decade remarkable for agricultural and
industrial depression, what might not be effected under
ordinarily favourable conditions, provided that the claims
of ability and capital on the one side, and, on the other,
the demands of labourers for the requisites of a decent
existence, were mutually recognized?
Then, again, the labour programme of the new Fabians
had to face the disadvantages which must ever attend
the manipulation of party politics. It is true that the
efforts put forward by the new labour party in 1890 had
a considerable effect on the Radical programme, which
Mr. John Morley put forward at Newcastle in Oct. 1891.
An increase of the powers of the new London County
Council, and the institution of district and parish councils,
formed two planks of the so-called Newcastle programme.
/ For a time it secured the adhesion of most Liberals ;
and as this enthusiasm for Hodge was fanned by the
1 Mr. Brabrook's paper just quoted.
232 The Rise of Democracy.
excitement attending- the overthrow of a Conservative
government, all went merrily, until Liberals realized
that their Socialist allies regarded the new parochial
councils as machines to be worked by collectivist steam.
Then there was trepidation in the Liberal ranks, already
discontented because the "old gang" as Mr. Labouchere
irreverently termed it had absorbed most of the govern-
mental prizes. In vain did the collectivists demand the
municipalization of this and the parochialization of that.
The spirit of the Manchester school was raised to warn
off the new and dangerous allies, and to leave the Glad-
stone ministry free to devote all its energies to Home
Rule.
The sequel is only too well known. The ministry,
desirous of rousing the people for Home Rule and
against the House of Lords, went to the country; and
the country, by a vast majority, overthrew the Liberal
Home Rule government. Since the general election of
1895 Liberals, Irish Nationalists, and Socialists have
engaged in an interesting triangular duel, each party
blaming the other two for the disaster, and declaring
that, if its nostrum had been more to the front, things
would have gone very differently. The Socialists stoutly
affirm that had the Liberals carried through the collec-
tivist programme, with which they dallied for election-
eering purposes three years before, they might still hold
the reins of power ; but, as it is, their ' ' Manchesterism
has reduced them to this present pass". 1 As a Parthian
shaft deftly sped into the uncovered flank of a former
ally, the argument tells with effect. But the Liberal
legionary may turn aside the bolt by reminding the
Parthian irregular that the local elective councils, even
the London County Council itself, were generally
swamped by reactionaries ; whence it would appear that
collectivism has no more abiding charms when coaxingly
1 G. Bernard Shaw in Politics in 1896, p. 97.
Democracy and Labour. 233
offered in municipal or parochial doses than when con-
fidently prescribed as a national recipe.
For the present, then, it would seem that John Bull
has elected to stand by old methods of tentative reform,
and refuses to exchange his old dwelling-place, so long-
as he can patch and extend it at will, for any commun-
istic phalanstere. The decision is what might be expected
from his eminently practical, respectable, and conven-
tional personality. As our whole inquiry has shown,
the typical Englishman dislikes to leap in the dark, and
only does so at the urgent invitation of party leaders
whom he thinks to be sound men. On the whole, he
much prefers to step cautiously, to hobble along rather
than to leap. Such methods do not lend themselves to
sensational incidents; but they serve to build up a
homely, if rather lumbering, political structure. These
characteristics have led him to ponder over and sift the
new and attractive programme put forward by able
young leaders, and select from it only the more practic-
able proposals, relegating even these to his old industrial
organizations for adoption or rejection as each may
decide. Never was there such exasperating eclecticism !
Well may it move the bile of adroit compilers of pro-
grammes. 1
Meanwhile the interacting influence of democracy and
the labour movement has served to bring about a strange
reconstruction of parties. Cutting athwart the old party
lines, it has necessitated strategic wheelings and move-
ments to the rear, until the descendants of pre-reform
Toryism find themselves, not without many searchings
of heart, almost shoulder to shoulder with men who
once waved the red flag of revolutionary Socialism.
The party manceuvrings which led up to this result have
been described in previous chapters. Disraeli's Reform
Bill of 1867 gave decent burial to Toryism of the Lord
1 See Politics in 1896, p. 86.
234 The Rise of Democracy.
Eldon type, and necessitated the adoption of a forward
policy of social reform and imperialism, on the due co-
ordination of which rest the fortunes of the whole British
race.
While this adroit leader was educating his party
for the future, the Liberals remained wedded to the
strongly individualist doctrines of the Manchester school,
to which Socialists have always been more opposed than
to the old Toryism. The way was therefore open for
something like a rapprochement between the younger
labour leaders and the more advanced Conservatives,
such as Lord Randolph Churchill. The enthronement
of democracy by the Liberal Reform Bills of 1884-85
tended to draw the extremes nearer together; for it
inaugurated a period of sheer opportunism, in which
each party strives to outbid the other in satisfying the
practicable claims of labour. Thus we see the strange
sight of a Conservative ministry pressing on a drastic
Employers' Liability Bill, despite the plaintive groans
of the ever-exploited Plugson, who imagined himself
safe at least for the life of one parliament. And while
a Unionist ministry is again at work "dishing the
Whigs ", the modern Socialist applauds the process.
For he too has changed. He no longer wears the
bonnet rouge: he has donned the silk hat. Under the
lead of the Fabians, he has developed a keen sense of
the superiority of parliamentary action to conspiracy and
barricades. He therefore no longer conspires against
Parliament, but strives to take it in tow. Still less does
he wage unrelenting war on the capitalist ; he exploits
the exploiter. He does not kill the goose that lays the
golden egg that was the mistake of his French brethren
in 1848 and 1871. His aim now is rather to submit her
to a strict and salutary regimen, and to municipalize
the eggs, leaving behind just enough to encourage the
creature.
Democracy and Foreign Policy. 235
Chapter XV.
Democracy and Foreign Policy.
To the most casual observer it must be obvious, if he
be not blinded by fanaticism, that neither on the Conti-
nent nor in the British Isles has democracy accomplished
the sweeping 1 changes in government which were antici-
pated by its warmest friends and bitterest foes in the
earlier or revolutionary phases. Some of the political
influences tending to retard its progress and moderate
its ardour have been noticed in previous chapters of
this little work. But there are others, having a wider
effect than any yet noted, that possibly are even more
potent than the mania for athleticism which absorbs
energies that would previously have been devoted to
politics. The most serious check to democracy has
undoubtedly been the embittering of national rivalries,
and consequent complications in foreign policy, such as
no popularly-elected Chamber can possibly unravel.
Were it possible to review the course of events on the
Continent, even a brief inquiry would probably suffice
to prove the connection between national jealousies and
that revival of autocracy which is so conspicuous a
feature of the present age. A slight acquaintance with
the course of recent continental politics will show that
the potent force of nationality, which Mazzini believed to
be essentially democratic, has strengthened the thrones
of the rulers of Prussia and Italy, and more recently
of Russia, who became its champions. The machinery
of diplomacy and the discipline of the royal armies
achieved the task which had defied the efforts of the
peoples themselves. Nationality could only effect the
unity of the German and Italian peoples by the aid of
236 The Rise of Democracy.
state-craft; and since the triumphs of 1870, democracy
has had to accept the compromise imposed by success-
ful statesmen and rulers. King William of Prussia and
Victor Emmanuel of Italy, along- with their shrewd
advisers, may therefore be regarded as the authors of
that mixed form of government which admits the people
to a considerable share in the legislative functions, but
reserves questions of foreign policy and national defence
almost exclusively to the control of the ruler and his
ministers.
Now, it is clear that when a state, wielding powers so
immense as those of Germany, adopts a mixed form of
government, which is scarcely more democratic than that
of the first Napoleon, an immense influence must be ex-
erted on the polity of neighbouring states. The effect of
militant autocracy on the fortunes of Western Europe
has also been vastly enhanced by the pressure of the
Eastern colossus. The predominance of Russia in
European affairs even threatens to renew, though in a
more guarded form, the Holy Alliance of the Eastern
potentates, who assiduously endeavoured to put back
the hands of the clock, not only in their own lands, but
throughout the whole of the Continent. France, once
the birthplace of new ideas, by her hostility to Germany,
and her desire to gain Russia's effective help, is now
reduced to a humiliating subservience to the wishes of
St. Petersburg ; and annoyance at the French occupation
of Tunis keeps the land of Mazzini and Garibaldi in
close alliance with the two central empires. It is the old
story. The jealousy of the peoples perpetuates methods
of autocratic rule which the progressives of 1848 and
1860 believed to have for ever passed away.
The experience of the past gives some cause for doubt-
ing whether popular government can be much more than
a name under the burdens imposed by a rigorous mili-
tarism and the checks administered by secret diplomacy.
Democracy and Foreign Policy. 237
Vast armaments imply not only a crushing- expenditure,
but also methods of administration which are incompatible
with free discussion and perpetual supervision by the
people's representatives. Even in time of peace armies
and navies must be controlled by a small number of
highly-trained experts; and in general the efficacy of
warlike preparations may be measured by the secrecy
with which they are carried out by almost irresponsible
officials, who can immediately dispose of great sums of
money. Now, every one of these conditions is opposed
to those claims of publicity and responsibility to the
people's representatives, on which democrats have always
insisted. The right to criticise officials is the alpha of
popular government. It is the worst of sins in a soldier.
His first duty is obedience. Partly, perhaps, for this
reason our forefathers were apprehensive of a standing
army, and took every means of reducing its numbers
and powers lest popular liberty should gradually be
undermined. It will be time to ridicule their fears
when a democratic republic and a vast citizen army
shall have existed side by side in France for more than
one generation. Actual warfare is, of course, still more
fatal to popular government. From the days of Crom-
well to those of Bismarck, war has ever tended to exalt
the one able leader, and to depress the authority of a
Chamber.
To avert the horrors of war and the political reaction
which it entails, states have recourse to diplomacy. But
here again democracy enters on a province alien to its
true character. Diplomacy demands secrecy and the
concession of large discretionary powers to its agents.
Democracy demands the discussion of every important
compact, even of the steps leading to such compact, by
the people's Chamber. Here is the Achilles' heel of
popular government, and autocrats have ever aimed
their deadliest shafts at this vulnerable point. Recent
238 The Rise of Democracy.
events have brought this fact prominently into notice.
In the spring of 1897 the French people were on the
horns of a painful dilemma. Their generous instincts
bade them befriend the Cretans and Greeks, for whom
they have long cherished the liveliest sympathy. On the
other hand, their hostility to Germany seemed to impose
on them compliance with the dictates of St. Petersburg.
Which should they obey, sentiment or interest? Under
an autocratic system, such as governs the foreign policy
of the central powers, a division of opinion would
scarcely be allowed to become apparent: it would be
smothered under the secrecy of ministerial discussion.
Parliamentary government, on the other hand, required
the public discussion of the alternative lines of policy,
and ended with a division, which decided for self-interest
and against quixotic sentiment. The discussion con-
cluded, in this case, with a victory for the diplomatic
course of action; but the mere fact of a public official
discussion called attention to the division of opinion,
and might have encouraged agitators to try to reverse
the vote of the Chamber, had the division been less
decisive. In any case, all the world knew that the
coercive action of France against the Cretan insurgents
was not the action of the whole people, but was resisted
by a considerable minority.
The action of our Parliament and of our cabinet at
that crisis is not without its features of interest, espe-
cially as it may serve to illustrate the advantages of a
mixed system of government. A claim similar to that
urged in the French chamber was put forward by
several members of Parliament, that before our war-ships
in Cretan waters took any decided measures of coercion,
the sanction of Parliament should be gained. The
answer of Mr. Balfour was short and decisive. He
emphatically repudiated the claim of Parliament to dic-
tate the action of Her Majesty's Ministers on this ques-
Democracy and Foreign Policy. 239
tion, and stated their determination to act without wait-
ing- for any expression of parliamentary opinion. That
opinion, or rather public opinion, he said, might be
exerted at the next general election, when the country
would have the right to endorse or reject their policy;
but, for the present, they would act, undeterred by any
prospective votes of censure.
The difference between French and British procedure,
in this instance, arose from the fact that the British
ministry is, in theory at least, the ministry of the queen
as well as of Parliament. On most questions, especially
those dependent on money votes, the control of ministers
by Parliament is tolerably effective; but in all matters
of foreign policy and of administrative action the shield
of the monarchy still intervenes between Parliament and
the cabinet. Omitting 1 any discussion of the instance
cited, it is obviously desirable on broad grounds of
expediency that such matters should not be submitted
to direct parliamentary control.
One incident of the reign must be remembered in this
connection, as upholding the prerogatives of the crown
and preventing- any encroachment even by an able and
masterful minister. Lord Palmerston's precipitate action
in regard to foreign affairs having produced friction in
several cases, Her Majesty, in 1850, sent a sharp re-
monstrance to him, requiring his adherence to prescribed
customs, and forbidding his interference with any deci-
sions previously arrived at or documents drawn up.
The secretary of state for foreign affairs accepted the
merited rebuke; but on his renewed contravention of this
understanding in 1851, when he hastily, though unoffi-
cially, recognized and approved Louis Napoleon's coup
d'dtat, he was dismissed from office by the premier.
The case has a more than personal interest. It marks
the resolute maintenance by the crown of a direct influ-
ence and control over the details, if not the general
240 The Rise of Democracy.
tenor, of the foreign policy of the United Kingdom;
and few will now deny that the intimate knowledge of
foreign affairs and of the wishes of rulers, possessed by
Her Majesty, renders it most desirable that she should
exercise a continuous control such as cannot be in the
power of a cabinet minister whose tenure of office de-
pends on the vox populi.
Many cases might be described where our foreign
policy has been compromised by publicity. But in days
when the South African Committee's inquiry is still
fresh in the popular memory it seems needless to dilate
on the disadvantages to the public service, or the ad-
vantages to proprietors of newspapers, resulting from
methods suggested apparently by an admiration for the
"chattering Greeks" of the late empire. On the other
hand, it may be noted that in proportion to the deter-
mination of a British ministry to take energetic action,
to that extent is publicity curtailed and the interference
of Parliament firmly repelled. The most noteworthy
instance of this almost defiant independence shown by
our executive is afforded by the action of the Beacons-
field ministry in the early part of 1878. The threatening
state of affairs at the close of the Russo-Turkish war
certainly justified strenuous action. Despite the accep-
tance by Turkey of the Russian preliminaries of peace,
the czar's troops continued to advance towards the
glittering prize of Constantinople. To prevent the
seizure of that seat of empire by Russia's legions, the
British ministry, without consulting the opinion of Par-
liament, immediately took three decisive steps. It
ordered the British fleet up the Dardanelles, it de-
manded a vote of credit for ^6,000,000 more as a
"vote of confidence" than as fixing a definite limit to
war expenditure and in the middle of April, when new
complications arose, it suddenly ordered a contingent of
our Indian troops to sail for Malta. The last order was
Democracy and Foreign Policy. 241
given only a day after Parliament had been soothed with
assurances of a pacific character. 1
Waiving any discussion of the melodramatic manner
in which these decisions were revealed to the world
when they were accomplished facts, it will probably be
acknowledged by open-minded persons that the swift
and determined action of the British government in those
four critical months was the best preservative of peace.
Without entering into the rights and wrongs of the
case, but viewing it merely as a choice of methods in a
grave crisis, it can scarcely be doubted that the nation
which vacillates and consults is lost, as surely as the
general who, in the midst of an engagement, nervously
calls a council of war. When the question is thus stated
broadly, as a question affecting the efficiency of our
diplomatic intervention, only one answer seems to be
possible: that while it is the duty of Parliament to
supervise the general course of foreign policy and ratify
all treaties, yet the conduct of negotiations and the
details of any proposed intervention must be left to
responsible ministers, who in such contingencies may
often be most prudently guided by the advice of the
sovereign.
Objections to this would seem to be founded on sheer
confusion of thought as to the real nature of demo-
cracy. Such objectors forget that, after all, democracy
is only a form of government; 2 that while it assigns
to the people a larger share in the representation and
in the control of public affairs, yet it differs from mon-
archy and aristocracy in degree and not in kind. Neither
of these forms of government, in Western Europe at
1 See Hansard, April 16-19, 1878 ; also Buxton's Finance and Politics, ii.
P- 245-
3 The confusion of thought may in part have arisen from the common
blunders of using the word ' ' democracy " as if it were equivalent to ' ' people ",
and "people" as equivalent to the "wage-earning classes". "Democracy"
means, of course, "government by the people", i.e. the nation.
242 The Rise of Democracy.
least, has ever been totally uninfluenced by public
opinion. The pressure of popular feeling has always
made itself felt in more or less direct ways on the most
absolute of monarchs and the most selfish of oligarchs.
Democracy has been mainly concerned with converting
this indirect or spasmodic pressure of the multitude on
the administration into a direct and regular influence.
But it still remains a form of government. It is not a
creed of life, as it was to Mazzini. That noble ideal
vanished as the smoke of the last discharges of the
Roman republicans rolled away on the fatal closing days
of June, 1849. The seer, whose winged words had
inspired the defenders of Rome no less than Garibaldi's
heroism, looked forward to democracy as the initiatrix
of a new life, a new civilization. That was not to be.
The collision with actuality, the compromises, bargain-
ings, and wars that followed, have left democracy merely
a form of government, not a life. In the future, when
the materialism of the present age has worked itself out,
when selfishness has exploited everything within the
walls of its prison house, when wars of nations or wars
of classes have shattered the bomb-proof bulwarks of
the most "civilized" states, then, at last, Humanity will
assuredly recur to nobler ideals ; and a new Christendom
will arise. For the present, however, democracy is
little more than a machine for producing the greatest
happiness of the greatest number: it is not an inspira-
tion to social duty. The fact must be faced with all its
consequences. Chief among these are national jeal-
ousies, the resulting military expenditure which imposes
the greatest burden on the greatest number, and the
mutual fears which attune the Concert of the Powers to
lugubrious strains.
Under these circumstances, popular government must
retain many of the characteristics of that of the warring
Teutonic tribe. The assent of all the warriors, so
Democracy and Foreign Policy. 243
Tacitus tells us, was needed for important affairs, but
details were discussed by the chiefs in council. The
distinction is rooted in the eternal laws of common
sense, and can no more be disregarded by the present
descendants of Hengist and Cerdic than by their imme-
diate followers. Indeed, it is inevitable that the mere
increase in the volume and complexity of the nation's
concerns should relegate details of foreign policy more
and more to the control of the people's chiefs. The
division of powers is inevitable, and on the whole is
most conducive to the due discharge of legislative
business, and to the effective wielding of the nation's
power in foreign affairs.
As a matter of history it cannot be denied that the
powers of our cabinet have increased, especially in rela-
tion to international policy. The process has been so
gradual as to escape general notice, except when some
champion of parliamentary forms calls attention to a
dangerous innovation. The increase has been partly
concealed under the imposing fiction which names the
ministers, Her Majesty's ministers. In this as in other
respects, monarchical traditions have favoured the steady
growth of administrative powers in the hands of the
picked men of the predominant party. The advantages
of a blending of democracy with monarchy are obvious
when we contrast the generally effective control of
foreign affairs by our cabinet with the crude efforts of
the National Assembly of France in 1790-92 to regulate
diplomacy. Ignoring the fact that democracy must
under ordinary conditions remain a form of government,
it endeavoured first and foremost to reduce the king's
ministers to the position of head-clerks, registering the
decrees of an all-powerful assembly. After realizing the
impossibility of controlling the machinery of government
by a crowd of debaters, it next delegated many of its
new controlling powers to committees ; and in the con-
244 The Rise of Democracy.
fusion produced by the outbreak of war, these or similar
bodies practically absorbed all the executive functions
of the state, thus paving the way for the organized
bureaucracy of the Directory in 1795-99, and the despot-
ism of Napoleon.
The swiftness of this change may be commended to
the notice of all who think that democracy implies
the direct management of all public business by a
popularly elected Chamber. In relation to the more
complex and difficult parts of such business, notably
foreign affairs, such a Chamber must be content to act
as a final court of appeal, reversing actions that have
been emphatically condemned by the electorate, but
intrusting to its cabinet ministers and their subordinates
the conduct of such affairs as cannot be controlled by
a large number of legislators. Among the influences
undermining the young French Republic none was more
potent than the rabid suspicion of the executive enter-
tained by the legislators. In the times of commotion
and war that followed, the imperious needs of national
safety transferred administrative control to a despotism
far heavier than that from which France had escaped.
But it is needless to multiply instances. The student
of history is well aware that a complete and unmixed
democracy has had a lengthy existence only in happy
lands, which, as in the case of Switzerland, escape the
burdens imposed by a complex foreign policy. Among
these favoured countries the United Kingdom cannot be
classed.
Government by public opinion has many recommenda-
tions. It is generally far more humane than the policy
of diplomatists; and at present the gusts of popular
passion would seem to be less dangerous to the welfare
of the whole human family than the calculating selfish-
ness of governments intent only on their own interests.
As the power of the press begins to permeate the more
Democracy and Foreign Policy. 245
backward of continental peoples, and as facilities of
travel mitigate the asperities of national prejudice, it
may be hoped that public opinion will everywhere oper-
ate with greater power on governmental machinery, and
wield it increasingly for the welfare of the whole world,
and not merely of the fatherland. At present the pro-
gress seems slow, sometimes even it seems to be in the
wrong direction. At any rate, the United Kingdom
cannot afford to disregard the warnings which are only
too clearly visible in the troublous past and the ominous
present. While our land has adopted democracy for its
internal government, it must retain in foreign policy
that administrative machinery which imparts something
of consistency to popular desires and strength to the
national will. No country can so ill afford to admit
flabbiness and vacillation into its external relations. No
people has interests so world-wide, a commerce so
sensitive, wealth so assailable on all the seas. It stands
face to face in the west with a republic, none too friendly,
which intrusts vast executive powers to a chief during
his four years of office. In the east it is confronted by
an all but oriental despotism, which wields all the govern-
ing powers of the Caesars, and forces ten times as vast.
Lying between these two powers, competing with the
one in industry, with the other in policy, Great Britain
cannot dispense either with the social invigoration pro-
duced by democracy or with the tenacity of purpose
developed by monarchical rule.
Here, then, is a barrier to British democracy which we
can scarcely overthrow without abdicating our position
as a world-wide power. For other peoples such an
abdication would be dangerous, but not suicidal, as it
must be to our own. The inhabitants of the United
Kingdom live in comfort, not on the resources of these
islands alone, but by means of the wealth which their
industry and commerce wins from other lands. Only by
246 The Rise of Democracy.
a firm and consistent policy can this easily assailable
position be maintained. Hitherto it has been found
difficult, if not impossible, for a purely democratic system
to sustain a long struggle either in war or diplomacy
against a polity constructed primarily with a view to
the needs of war or diplomacy. The efforts of our people
to cope with these difficulties present some interesting
lessons. Specially noteworthy are the events of 1880
and of succeeding years. In 1880 it seemed that the
people themselves were determined to direct the foreign
policy of the land. The complexities of the task soon
unfolded themselves. The Gladstone ministry, which
was raised to power very largely by the generous
enthusiasms of the people in foreign affairs, endeavoured
to satisfy those claims. At once it found itself hampered
by the obligations of the past and the difficulties of the
present ; and before two years were gone it disappointed
the wishes of its most ardent supporters by the retention
of Cyprus and by intermeddling in the affairs of Egypt.
These and many subsequent events have opened the eyes
of many who in 1880 had convinced themselves that
foreign policy was the offspring of Lord Beaconsfield's
oriental imagination and of a desire to divert the nation's
energies from domestic reforms into labyrinths of adven-
ture.
The sequel has dispelled those suspicions by reveal-
ing the intimate connection between our commercial
prosperity and the maintenance of the empire. The
earth-hunger of continental states, and their determina-
tion to treat their new possessions as strict commercial
preserves, have induced the most insular of our manu-
facturers to take broader views than were current in the
previous generation. For in the meantime free -trade
has diffused our commerce and our wealth, thereby com-
pelling statesmen to take means of securing it from
attack. "Your triumph marks the end of the grand
Democracy and Foreign Policy. 247
era of English policy": these were the sentiments of
M. Renan candidly expressed to Cobden. 1 Events have
disproved the charge. The results of free-trade have
led our manufacturers and merchants to become Im-
perialists. The Little Eng-landers of the previous genera-
tion have passed, or are passing, away; and the great
manufacturing towns, which were once the strongholds
of a somewhat narrow Radicalism, now vie with London
and the counties in their desire to maintain our naval
supremacy, and to secure the co-operation of all parts
of the empire. The Birmingham of John Bright has
become the Birmingham of Joseph Chamberlain.
The changed relations of the United Kingdom to the
outside world are realized by the artisans of our great
industrial centres. They are becoming increasingly con-
scious of the vastness and complexity of British com-
mercial interests, on which their livelihood ultimately
depends. The imposition of a hostile tariff by a British
colony, the annexation of a large slice of Africa by France
or Germany, the predominance of Russia in Northern
China, may entail ruin on a British industry, or the
extinction of a line of steam-ships. In this sphere Trade-
unionism is absolutely helpless. Demonstrations and
votes of censure will avail nothing unless they move our
government to take decisive action. And such action,
as I have shown, implies trust on the part of the people
in responsible ministers, a trust which not only abstains
from crippling their administration of the nation's funds
for defensive and offensive purposes, but also enables
successive governments to maintain a firm and tenacious
foreign policy.
We have recently been passing (perhaps we have
passed) through a phase of thought which is common
to every young democratic government, and which
wrecked that of France a century ago. The people's
1 Notes from a Diary, by Sir M. Grant Duff.
248 The Rise of Democracy.
representatives have suspected and nagged at those who
are responsible for foreign affairs ; and consequently our
policy has been weakened by fits of vacillation such
as rarely were known in the time of Pitt, Canning,
and Palmerston. If the United Kingdom is to recover
its rightful influence in the world, it will be not merely
by vast armaments, but by the use of different methods
in foreign affairs from those which must necessarily
prevail in our domestic concerns. An electorate which
is largely inexperienced may, possibly for several decades,
enthrone the principle of flux in our home politics; but
that same electorate will assuredly learn by bitter ex-
perience that unless our foreign policy is firm and con-
tinuous, we shall remain without an ally, and be con-
demned possibly to an unequal struggle even for the
maintenance of our present possessions.
Index.
Adullamites, the, 174-5, J 77> X 79-
Agricultural Holdings Act, 196.
Agriculture, British, 19-21, 195-
203.
Alabama Case, the, 184.
Anti-Corn-law League, 120-1, 125,
133-
Arnold, Dr., 114, 127.
Artisans' Dwelling Act, 192, 193.
Attwood, Thomas, 46, 90-3, 105,
108.
Bagehot, Mr., 162.
Baines, Mr., 75, 170, 179.
Balfour, Mr., 238.
Ballot, the, 12, 48, 49, 85, 144, 183,
191.
Bamford, Samuel, 28.
Beaconsfield, Lord, 198-200, 240.
Bentham, Jeremy, 33-5, 152, 154-5.
Birkbeck, Dr., 63, 65, 67.
Birmingham Political Union, 46,
90-1, 93.
Brabrook, Mr., 230.
Bright, John, 75, 125, 139, 165, 176,
178, 190, 205, 246.
Brougham, Lord, 39, 59, 98.
Bull Ring Riot, the, 106-110.
Burdett, Sir Francis, 26, 47.
Burke, n, 22.
Burns, Mr. John, 229.
Carlyle, Thomas, 77, 87-8, 94, 114,
115, 126, 130, 216.
Carpenter, William, 73, 103.
Cartwright, Major, 12-13, *5> 2 9>
77, 210.
Castlereagh, Lord, 64.
Chad wick, Mr., 65, 134-5.
Chamberlain, Mr., 193, 212, 246.
Charter, Origin of the People's, 12,
15, 24, 28-9, 84-90.
Churchill, Ld. Randolph, 206, 233.
Cleave, John, 71-3.
Cobbett, William, 17, 25-28, 55, 58,
59, 64, 77, 130.
Cobden, Richard, 75, 119-21, 125,
150, 246.
Collins, John, 93, 107-8, 116.
Combination Laws, Repeal of, 36.
Complete Suffrage, 119-128, 203.
Constitution, English, 10-13, 3>
33- 35. 49-52. 78-9, 83-4, 121,
123, 150-1, 154, 168-171, 205-6,
210-213, 245.
Conventions, Chartist National, 103,
105, 108, 1 1 1-2, 137-8, 141.
Cooper, Thomas, 120, 123, 136.
Co-operation, 53-4, 67-8, 144-5,
221.
Corn Law, the, of 1815, 23-24.
Courtney, Mr., 209.
Cross, Viscount, 192.
Dale, Dr., 205.
Darwin, 166-7.
Davitt, Mr., 198.
Derby, Lord, 175-179, 202.
Dilke, SirC, 208.
Disraeli, Mr., 55-59, 150, 172, 176
181, 185, 187-194, 196-198.
Drage, Mr., M.P., 215, 227.
Eastern Question, the, 198-9, 237-
8, 240, 245.
250
The Rise of Democracy.
Education Act of 1870, the, 183,
185.
Eight Hours Day, 224-230.
Elliott, Ebenezer, 65.
Emancipation, Catholic, 36.
Engel, Karl, 135.
Fabian Society, the, 224-7, 2 34-
Factory Acts, 193, 218-224, 226.
Fielden, Mr., 55, 95, 139, 219.
Firth, Mr., 205.
Forster, W. E., 183-4.
Fox, C. J., 12, 22.
Free-trade, 192, 195.
Friendly Societies Act, 193.
Frost, Mr., 112.
Gladstone, Mr., 150, 169-175, 179-
186, 187-192, 196-7, 199-200,
205-210, 212, 231.
Grey, Earl, 39, 186.
Grote, George, 73, 74, 183.
Ground Game Act, the, 203.
Hampden Clubs, 28-9.
Hardie, Mr. Keir, 229.
Hare, Mr., 161-4, I 79-
Harney, G. J., 102, 103, 140-1,
143, 144.
Hartington, Lord, 212.
Hetherington, Henry, 71-3, 77,
87, 89, 96, 101, 214-5.
Hodgkin, Lieutenant, 43-5, 53,
100, 214-5.
Holyoake, Mr., 91.
Home Rule, 187-8, 197, 212, 231.
Howell, Mr., M.P., 223, 225.
Hughes, Thomas, 144-5.
Hume, Joseph, 35, 37, 39, 80, 142.
Hunt, Henry, 26, 30-2, 55, 77.
Independent Labour Party, 229.
Irish Church, Disestablishment of
the, 186.
Irish Land Act of 1870, 182, 186,
190, 196.
Jacobins, 12-13, T S-
Jones, Ernest, 140-1, 143, 144.
Kingsley, Rev. Charles, 138, 144-5,
221.
Knight, Charles, 64.
Kossuth, 143.
Laing, Mr., 179.
Local Government Bill, the, of
1888, 212-3.
Locke King, 170.
Lodger Franchise, 178, 210.
London Working Men's Associa-
tion, 74, 86, 101, 116, 215.
Lovett, William, 64, 66-9, 77, 85-
87, 96-7, 107-8, in, 116-7, 124,
142, 214-5.
Lowe, Robert, 174-5, l8 4i I ^9-
Lubbock, Sir John, 209.
Lytton, Bulwer, 74.
Macaulay, Lord, 158.
Maine, Sir Henry, 211.
Mallock, Mr. W. H., 230.
Malthus, Dr., 56-7.
Mann, Mr. Tom, 227.
Martineau, Miss, 57, 64.
Maurice, Rev. F. D., 115, 144-5,
221.
Mazzini, 87-9, 116, 142, 236, 241.
Melbourne, Lord, 51, 81, 82, 186.
Miall, Edward, 121-2, 127, 183.
Mill, James, 35-8, 157.
Mill, John Stuart, 35-6, 96, 152,
ISS. IS7-I66, 173-4, 179. 183-4,
209.
Milner Gibson, Mr., 75.
Molesworth, Sir W., 74.
Montesquieu, 150, 154.
Moral -force Chartists, 87-90, 96,
103-4, IJ S' II8 - l8 3> 2l8 > 22 4-
Morley, Mr. John, 205, 231.
Municipal Reform Act, 61.
Napoleon I., 13-14.
National Debt, 16, 190.
Index.
251
National Political Union, 46-9.
National Union of the Working
Classes, 45, 47-9.
Newport Riot, the, 112-4.
Noble, John, 202.
Northcote, Sir Stafford, 208.
Northern Star, the, 100-1, 106,
117, 144, 215.
Oastler, Mr., 95, 100, 102, 219.
O'Brien, Bronterre, 101, 105, in,
216.
O'Connell, 26, 86-97.
O'Connor, Feargus, 96, 97-101, 103,
in, 117, 118, 122-5, 136, 139-141,
143-4, 146, 203, 215.
Outrages, the Sheffield, 221-2.
Owen, Robert, 18, 41-3, 47, 53-4,
67, 73, 87-8, 96, 215-216, 217,
219.
Paine, Tom, 26.
Palmerston, Lord, 51, 148, 150, 169,
186, 239, 247.
Parliament, Reform of, 32, 33, 35-
40, 45-52, 83-4, 85-6, 93, 121,
123, 144-6, 161-5, 168-171, 221-2,
233-
Peel, Sir Robert, 18, 51, 81, no,
121, 127, 130-5, 147, 149, 150,
219.
Peterloo, 15, 31-2.
Physical - force Chartists, 28, 90,
97-105, 108-114, I 35~4 I > 22I>
Pitt, William, 13, 22, 150, 247.
Place, Francis, 40-41, 44, 46, 87,
117.
Plug Riots, the, 123-4.
Police Bill, the, no.
Poor Law, 52, 54-62, 77-8, 93-6,
134.
Proudhon, 43.
Reform Bill, the, of 1832, 32, 33-
9, 48-52, 83, 130, 151, 158, 188,
205.
Reform Bill of 1866, 167-175.
Reform Bill of 1867, 176-181, 186-9,
201-4, 2 6> 2 33-
Reform Bills of 1884-5, 200-212,
233-
Representative Government, Mill's,
161-165.
Revolution, French, of 1789, 12, 18-
19- 33. 48.
Revolution, French, of 1830, 36,
39-
Roebuck, Mr., 86, 123.
Rousseau, 34, 152, 153-4.
Russell, Lord John, 46, 48, 82-4,
85, 108, in, 112, 169-72, 174-6,
179.
' ' Sacred Month ", the, 45, 104,
105.
Sadler, Michael, Mr., 95, 219.
Salisbury, Lord, 178-9, 207-8, 212.
Shaftesbury, Lord, 55, 139, 219-
220.
Shaw, Mr. Bernard, 232.
Six Acts, the, 32.
Smith, Adam, 55.
Smith, Sydney, 57, 63, 82.
Spence, Dr., 100, 216.
Spencer, Herbert, 166.
Spring Rice, Mr., 74, 82.
Stephens, Raynor, Rev., 94-6, 100,
123.
St. Simon, 167.
Sturge, Joseph, no, 118-128, 203.
"Taxes on Knowledge", 63-5, 70-
6, 168-9.
Taylor, Dr. J. , 102, 105, 107.
Ten Hours Act, 139, 219.
Tocqueville, de, 151-3, 156-7.
"Tom Hughes", 144-5.
Tooke, Home, 12-13.
Trade-unions, 53-4, 123, 145, 184,
220-230; the new, 224-232.
Trevelyan, Sir G., 200-1.
Unionism, the new, 224-232.
Unstamped Press, the, 64-73.
Victoria, Queen, 79-81, 239.
252
The Rise of Democracy.
Villiers, Mr., 75.
Vincent, Henry, 66, 69-71, 87, 89,
97, 101, 104, in, no.
Wade, Dr., 90, 103.
Watson, James, 73.
Webb, Mr. Sidney, 224-7.
Wellington, Duke of, 39, 46, no,
138-
William IV., 80, 86.
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