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English Periodicals And The Democratic Movement: 1865-1885

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English Periodicals And The Democratic Movement: 1865-1885

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Content ~ This' dissertation'
has been m icrofilm ed
exactly as received
Mic 60-4469
EYGH, Andrew Robert. ENGLISH PERIODICALS
AND THE DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT: 1865- 85.
University of Southern California, Ph. D ., 1960
History, modern
University M icrofilm s, In c., Ann Arbor, Michigan
ENGLISH PERIODICALS
AND THE
DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT: 1865-85
by
Andrew Robert Rygh
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(History)
June 1960
UNIVERSITY O F SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES 7, CALIFORNIA
This dissertation, written hy
,^drew_R.__Ry^h
under the direction of hX$...Dissertation Com
mittee, and approved by all its members, has
been presented to and accepted by the Graduate
School, in partial fulfillment of requirements
for the degree of
D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y
Date Jnne...l.9.6.Q..................................
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. INTRODUCTION................................. 1
II. THE DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT AND THE REVIEWS
TO 1865 .................................... 20
III. - THE PASSING OF AN OLD ORDER: 1865 .......... 50
IV. "THE TOURNEY OF THE CENTURY"................ 87
V. LEAPING NIAGARA............................. 116
VI. CHANGING ATTITUDES TOWARD THE WORKER:
1867-77 .................................... 161
VII. DEMOCRACY, PUBLIC OPINION, AND THE OLD
CONSTITUTION................................ 210
VIII. DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM..................... 253
IX. TOWARD THE NEW SOCIETY....................... 300
BIBLIOGRAPHY............................. 322
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This is a small part of the history of an idea. In
the following pages I have attempted to answer one question
above all: What did the governing classes of England think
about democracy during those critical years when they
accepted that system of government? In 1865 most of them
agreed that it was not in keeping with the constitution and
they firmly opposed it. But by 1885 it was there, or very
nearly so. How then did they adjust their minds to the
"facts" of democratic reality and what was the significance
of it? As far as I can discover the question has not yet
been answered. Textbooks, of course, largely confine them
selves to a narration of political events; so, too, do
works like J. Holland Rose’s The Rise of Democracy; and
even studies on political thought of the age, like
Sir Ernest Barker's Political Thought in England: 1848-
1914 or Crane Brinton's English Political Thought in the
19th Century, do not examine Victorian thought and feelings
about democracy so much as they examine the ideas of some
few seminal minds. What I have in mind is to portray the
thought of a larger body of men (in a briefer span of time,
1
of course), not only those few great whom one encounters in
every history, but those who translated the ideas of these
men into political action, those who shaped public opinion
and thus the democratic structure of England. Further, to
gain scope and a fresh angle of vision, X have utilized an
important but hitherto neglected source: literary reviews.
These have been utilized before, but not in the consistent
manner that I have. For example, Dr. Maccoby's five
volumes on English Radicalism: 1762-1914 (London: 1935-55),
a sprawling mass of material, refer to the reviews only
occasionally to cast light on the democratic movement. On
the other hand, Diana Spearman, in her Democracy in England
(1957), has examined the development of the idea of democ
racy in the same time span, but not through study of these
sources. Moreover, both works unfortunately fall down at
that very point where I have turned my attention— ”the
fault, no doubt of the specialized historians,”' * " who have
not so far examined the area in close enough detail. This
work then may help fill a gap in our understanding of the
English democratic movement. It may, for example, help
i
correct such limited views of the period as those revealed
in Adams and Schuyler*s Constitutional History of England
wherein it is remarked (pp. 461-2) apropos of the democratic
■*"A. J. P. Taylor, reviewing Spearman's work in, The
1 New Statesman and Nation. 53 (June 1, 1957), 714.
effects of the Reform Bill of 1867, that "men of the time
were scarcely conscious of them." Not only is this simply
untrue, I hold that the governing classes' consciousness of
the significance of the Reform Act influenced the subse
quent course of the democratic movement. I have hoped,
therefore, that this work may also illustrate the influence
of ideas on the course of events, and reveal how thought
is, in fact, of the very essence of history. On this I
must now say something more, for it leads to the heart of
my approach.
To begin, any study of democracy is at once pre
sented with the problem of terms and meaning. Everyone is
conscious these days of the extraordinary amount of con
fusion that envelopes the idea of what a democracy is or
seeks to attain. Most governments today profess democracy
and vie with one another in their claims of offering "real"
or "true" democracy, yet there is certainly no agreement on
2
what they mean. East of the Elbe river there seems to be
a different variety of democracy than that known in the
West; and what the Afro-Asians conceive it to be I am not
at all sure. Mao Tse-tung and Nehru see democracy from a
different point of view than do Attlee or Truman. But then
2
See, for example, Richard McKeon, ed., Democracy in
a World of Tensions: A Symposium Prepared by UNESCO fUni-
versity of Chicago: 1951).
so did Jefferson and Robespierre, Mill and Marx, Wilson and
Sun Yat-sen— all classed as democrats. It is true that
there is a common ground amid all this diversity, for most
governments contend that they are acting in accord with the
wishes of the majority; but the range of action under this
umbrella is enormous. Under one edge, the needy and un
employed are cared for; under the opposite, a government
calmly liquidates millions of human beings who supposedly
stand in the way of the majorityfs happiness. It is simply
as the great Victorian, Lord Bryce, said: there is no
archetype of democracy. Each has varied, each has borne
the stamp of its genealogy, and to talk about modem democ
racy one must examine specific cases. The case of England
is still one of the best.
Just as there is no agreement today on the proper
scope of a "truly" democratic government's actions, there
is no agreement on the democratic ideology. Consider what
has happened since Mill's time to the ideal of liberty,
until our own age usually held to be a fundamental of a
democracy. The aim of democratic society was thought to be
the creation of an environment that permitted the maximum
freedom to pursue one's own notion of happiness, to seek
the good life as one saw fit so long as it did not harm
others. This aim, in turn, rested on the happy belief that
the individual knew better than any government what was
5 !
best for himself, an ideal that seems more dear than ever
in an elbowing, cybernetic age. But those who espoused
this idea talked at the same time of a sense of responsi
bility upon which freedom rests; they talked of self-
discipline, of knowing when one's actions had gone too far
and done to others what we would not have done to our
selves. This was the other side of the coin. Today,
ironically, in Russia these latter qualities apparently
mark the "progressive," "forward" look, while in the United
States when one talks of responsibility, moderation, self-
discipline, whether in connection with national debts or
personal behavior, he is classed as a reactionary who some
how poses an economic and social threat to the majority's
search for more hamburgers, more television, and a gre
garious, insurance-protected society. It is the same with
the other ideals of democracy. Equality seems to some
people to mean equal opportunity to grow intellectually to
the maximum of the individual's potential, and for others
it appears to mean that no one shall grow so that he stands
out above a dead level of the "happy" community. Frater
nity fares better in a collective age, but like the rest
a profound confusion envelopes the interpretation. The
democratic ideology has thus varied from generation to
generation.
In short, to talk of democracy one must examine not
only a specific place but a specific time. I have chosen
to examine the England of 1865-85 because that is the
period when England adopted that form of government. Just
as with the meaning of words, it is still a good practice
to go back to origins and development for the meaning of an
idea. Moreover, the issues were simpler and clearer then.
It is true that the notions of these men may seem naive at
times in their encounter with democracy in its infancy; but
the fundamentals are still there. Over and over again one
seems to hear the basic principles that seem almost lost
today amid a hedge of subtleties and surrounding issues.
So often, too, I seem to hear in the words of lesser men
only the echo of yesterday’s giants. Perhaps the thought
of some of the great Victorians can help us clarify our own
minds on the nature of democratic government and its
ideals.
At this point, however, I have departed somewhat
from the traditional studies of democracy which have
usually confined themselves to an examination of the system
in operation, i.e., to such details as the methods of se
lecting and electing candidates, the personalities in
volved, manipulations and bargains struck, laws passed and
programs prociaimed. Such studies of external events, of
course, do not often go beneath the surface to the body of
ideas and emotions which help to sustain and to channel
7!
at the same time the action of these political figures. To
gain depth, to gain a third dimension to the picture of an
age, therefore, I have tried to portray what men thought
about democracy, what they thought the "facts” meant, and
what they thought they were doing when they passed laws
that gave form to their democracy.
Politicians, as everyone knows, do not operate in
vacuums. Perhaps more than ever before we are conscious of
how they seek to move people with ideas. By the formula
tion of hidden wishes into some grand slogan, action is
channelled, we are led to buy this cigarette or support
that cause. Furthermore, since ideas have a life not given
to men and events, the older the ideas behind the slogan,
the greater power it will have. Liberty, equality, frater
nity still move men, and if a cause is somehow equated with
them it has a good chance of winning converts. In short,
political systems have ideological roots that determine
their character. And political figures must be aware of
these if they are to be successful, particularly in a
democracy. They must operate within a given framework;
they cannot openly transgress accepted ideas without risk.
No responsible politician in England or the United States
today, for example, would openly advocate a return to a
system of government based on the will and judgment of an
; aristocracy or the abolition of social security benefits.
Nor would he openly challenge the notion that the opinion
of the majority of the people is— if not the expression of
God’s will--at least pretty close to whatever workaday
truth there is. Less than a century ago this was not so in
England. Thus the ideological framework--what men thought
about democracy— is a very real and important factor in
determining the character of an age.
This is not the place to quarrel with Marxists or
other determinists who insist that ideas are merely out
growths, rationalizations, of environmental facts and that
one had better look to them first. It is worth noting,
however, that Marxists attach a peculiar importance to
ideas, particularly those of the governing class. As has
often been pointed out, they are purists in dogma. Leon
Trotsky, in the Preface to his History of the Russian
Revolution, insists that "consciousness is . . . determined
by conditions," but he also remarks that changes in the
economic bases of society are not enough to explain the
course of a revolution. "The dynamic of revolutionary
events is directly determined by swift intense and passion
ate changes in the psychology of classes which have already
formed themselves before the revolution." The masses, of
course, have no prepared plans of reconstruction when the
revolution begins. "Only the guiding layers of a class
have a political program"; and these, unwilling to leave
9 I
conditions to determine the future, with their political
parties guide the thought and energy of the masses which
would otherwise "dissipate like steam not enclosed in a
piston-box" (xi). Thus in addition to an iron-hard party
organization, a "correct" ideology has always played an
immensely important role in the Communist system despite
its materialism.
In addition to the relationship of ideas to politi
cal activities that I have been describing so far, there is
yet another level on which thought and action meet that is
perhaps of even greater importance in portraying the
character of an age: what men think the facts of external
events mean and what they think will be the effect of their
response to them. To observe this nexus of thought with
action and to see how what men think may be of the very
essence of history, it is only necessary to recall the
Platonic allegory of the cave. Men do not, indeed, cannot
see the world as it is. They have only images of the
"political territory" (which even the experts can never
really know) and these guide their actions, consciously or
3
otherwise. These "reflections" of the political world,
imitations of its principles and operations, are composed
3
Diana Spearman has some interesting thought on this
subject. See the Introduction to her Democracy in England
I(New York: 1957).
10
of ideas— some from the "ideological framework," some from
experience; some from the past, some from the contemporary
world— that we have gained from parents, teachers, edi
torials, the politician and so on. They contain, as T. S.
Eliot said more neatly:
Time present and time past
. . . both perhaps present in time future.
It is true these reflections of the world may be quite at
variance with the "facts" of reality--they are usually
vague and rarely up to date. Still, they govern men’s
choice of action and every politician has to deal with them
when he wants support for a measure or goes to the polls.
Moreover, since no individual's "mirror" is absolutely
unique but shares qualities with others, we commonly cate
gorize it as the conservative, middle-of-the-road, or
radical way of looking at things. Collectively, we speak
of them as public opinion.
Thus these individual and collective images of
reality not only help to explain the wide range of inter
pretation put on democracy and its ideals, they also point
to the conclusion that in order to understand what went on
at any given time one must consider what men thought was
going on, what they thought they were doing or going to do
when they passed laws or joined parties. This is particu
larly true of Victorian England, and this is the very heart
of my study. In 1867 they had an abundance of "facts,” for
example, in the reports of commissions on the number of
people that would be admitted to the constitutional pale by
a B 7 franchise or household suffrage. But the arguments
that roused men in and out of Parliament were the inter
pretations put on those facts, what men thought they meant
in the light of their "mirrors" of political reality. That
is why when the governing classes of England squarely faced
the issue of democracy amid some of the most heated and
brilliant debates of the century, when they hammered out
what they thought were the ideas and direction of democ
racy, they not only acted under the influence of their
opinions, they swayed their listeners and readers and
helped determine how later generations should view and ad
just to democracy. What Mill and Salisbury said about the
relationship of working class character and wants to poli
tics not only influenced the flow of events in their time,
it is still coloring the thought and actions of those who
vote for the Laborites or Conservatives today. Quite
simply, they helped form the psychic matrix of those who
came after.
Following this line of thought, I found myself in
agreement with G. M. Young who held that "Victorian History
is before all things a history of opinion." It was "not
what happened, but what people felt about it when it was
happening . . . the conversation of the people who
counted."^ And one must look, as Disraeli put it in the
great debates on democratic reform, to "that impartial and
intelligent opinion which really regulates the country."'*
Opinion in that age, of course, was openly recognized as
formed by those with position, wealth, or education, not
covertly as we so often do and try to advertise as "the
voice of the people." Men "deferred" as Bagehot observed,
to their betters, the "Gentlemen of England," the governing
classes who ran the country and admittedly knew more about
government and the world than their clerks.
In order to discover the opinion "of those who
counted," I have gone to the pages of three great old
literary reviews, The Edinburgh Review, or Critical
Journal. The Quarterly Review, and The Fortnightly Review.
Along with (Hansard's) Parliamentary Debates (upon which I
have also relied) and official documents, these Reviews
have long been recognized as one of the three or four best
original sources for the study of the age.** Moreover, they
^Victorian England: Portrait of an Age (New York:
Doubleday Anchor Book, 1954), pp. 6-7.
^Hansard, Parliamentary Debates. 3rd. series,
CLXXXIII (April 27, 1866), 98.
6See the bibliographies of: R. C. K. Ensor, England:
1870-1914; Sidney Low and L. C. Sanders, The Political His
tory of England, vol. XII; G. M. Young and W. D. Handcock,
.eds., English Historical Documents: 1833-74: Walter Graham,
1 English Literary Periodicals: and Harold Herd, The March of
Journalism.
13;
have the advantage over parliamentary debates of being far
calmer and more considered in their judgments. The two
older reviews are so ministerial in tone that Gladstone
could say of them that unlike popular journalism, members
of Parliament might look to them for a "philosophy of his
tory."^ And, unlike the parliamentary debates, they are
often truer records of the way men thought and felt— Lord
Salisbury, the most important contributor to the Quarterly
O
in this period, is a good case in point. They opened
their pages to more first class intellects, in addition to
the major political figures, than any Parliament could pos
sibly assemble. Lastly, they are some of the best mediums
through which thought was translated into action: Mill's
radicalism through the Fortnightly (the chief interpreter
of his philosophy after his death), Lord Russell's Whiggism
through the Edinburgh, and Lord Salisbury's conservatism
through the Quarterly.
Despite this, they have been relatively neglected as
sources of political history. Perhaps the reason for this
7Pari. Deb.. CLXXVIII (1866), 1648.
^See The Quarterly Review. 199 (Jan., 1904), 298 ff.;
A. L. Kennedy, Salisbury: 1830-1903, Portrait of a States
man (London, 1953), p. 192; and Algernon Cecil's study
ofhis uncle in Queen Victoria and Her Prime Ministers
(London, 1953).
For the sake of simplicity, the Reviews will hence
forth be abbreviated to the Quarterly, the Edinburgh, or
!the Fortnightly.
neglect lies partly in the fact that they are classed as
literary reviews and attention has too long been focused on
this aspect. But their literary values were always "sub-
9
ordinated to those of politics," and politics remained the
most frequent and prominent subject. Actually the review
ing of books was often as not merely the basis for an essay
on politics in the two older reviews while the Fortnightly,
in keeping with its character of a rebel, frankly subordi
nated book reviews to the articles. One of the editors
described the case for all of them when he said: "The
Review . . . has, in short, but two legs to stand on.
Literature is one of them, but its right leg is politics."^
As already indicated, the Edinburgh was avowedly Whig-
Liberal (far more of the former than the latter), the
Quarterly was Conservative (with Tory leanings), and though
the Fortnightly in the beginning tried to open its pages to
all shades of thought it was soon clearly on the Radical
side of politics.
Walter Graham in his pioneer study of English liter
ary periodicals said that the great reviews (of which the
three I have examined are the most important) "moulded the
literary taste of England as the Academy directed that of
9
Walter Graham, English Literary Periodicals ( ’ New
York, 1930), p. 248.
• ^The Edinburgh Review. 196 (Oct., 1902), 287.
15
France [while] their political influence was even more
11
potent." This need not be accepted at its face value, of
course, but it seems doubtful that he was very far wrong in
an estimate of their influence. I have already indicated
that the list of contributors to the three reviews alone
reads like a Hall of Fame roster. Could any Parliament
have summoned Gladstone, Salisbury, Froude, Bagehot,
Morley, Mill, Spencer, Bryce, Disraeli, Leslie Stephen,
Joseph Chamberlain, Robert Lowe, Mathew Arnold, George
Curzon, Henry Hyndman, and Thomas Burt, to name but a few
of the most famous men who contributed to these reviews?
There was no boasting, only justifiable pride in the com
ment of the Edinburgh1s editor when he said: "It was sup
ported and largely written by men of the greatest position
in the world of politics and letters. Their names would
12
have made the fortune of a modern monthly." Indeed, they
would have. And the same thing was true of the other two.
1 - i
• ^English Literary Periodicals, p. 230. Some of the
other great reviews of the period were: the Saturday, the
National, the Contemporary. and the Nineteenth Century. I
have examined all of them in the period tinder study and, in
addition, constantly referred to Punch as an invaluable
touchstone for the temper of the times. By the 1860*s the
latter had lost its earlier Radicalism and moved to a kind
of neutral ground criticizing both parties. If its criti
cism of the Liberal party was less penetrating than that of
the Conservative at the time of the Second Reform Bill,
after 1874 it moved over toward the political right.
12196 (Oct., 1902), 283.
16 j
In a review of Endymion the Quarterly noted that Disraeli
had contributed more than one essay to "the most celebrated
publication of the Tories, which had commanded attention,
and obtained celebrity. Many a public man of high rank and
reputation, and even more than one Prime Minister, had con-
13
tributed to its famous pages." The list of the great and
near great who contributed to the Fortnightly is simply too
long to indicate here. One illustration of the influence
of these reviews will suffice. When William E. Forster and
Gladstone were pushing the latter*s reform bill through in
14
a "Battle of the Giants" in 1866, they had to defend
themselves and their allies on the floor of Parliament from
what was "regarded as the great organ of the Conservative
Party."^3 It was Lord Salisbury who was attacking them
through the Quarterly, and there was no mistaking his
style, as Gladstone pointed out. To sum up their import
ance, all the best writers contributed to the reviews and
^"Lord BeaconsfieId*s Endymion." 151 (Jan., 1881),
127.
^G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright ('Boston.
1913), p. 353.
13Parl. Deb.. CIXXVIII (1865), 1648; and CLXXXII
(1866), 1130. Nor was this the first time. See the
Quarterly, 199 (Jan., 1904), 304, for the story of Lord
Russell’s defense of his 1860 Reform Bill from the attack
I of Lord Salisbury through the Quarterly.
1 f i
"everybody in the governing classes read them." They
were the organs through which the governing classes of
England addressed their peers.
Their audience was limited, of course, to those with
wealth and position; it was a small one. They were not
mass circulation periodicals like the Comhill or Broadway
magazines which began with over 100,000 copies.^ The high
point of the Edinburgh and Quarterly was in 1817-18 with
IQ
circulations of around 13,000 copies each. Thereafter
they declined, though they revived with the Second Reform
Bill; and it must be remembered that the Quarterly is still
issued at the time of this writing after almost one hundred
and fifty years, while the Edinburgh lasted over a century
until 1929 (the Fortnightly until 1954)--no mean feat when
one remembers the economics of publishing since Lord North-
cliffe’s mass production. The Fortnightly hit a circula
tion of around 2,500^ seven years after its founding
■^R. C. K. Ensor, England: 1870-1914 (Oxford, 1952),
p. 145.
■^R. D. Altick, The English Common Reader (Univer
sity of Chicago, 1957), Appendix C. This is the best book
I have found on the literature of the common man in the
19th century. There is a wealth of information in its
appendices which discuss the problems of obtaining periodi
cal circulation figures.
^Ibid., and Edinburgh, 196 (Oct., 1902), 289.
^Altick, Appendix C; and A. W. Brown, The Meta
physical Society: Victorian Hinds in Crisis. 1669-80
(Columbia University, 1947), n. p. 227.
(1865), though its editor, John Morley, claimed 30,000
20 21
readers for it. Actually, as R. D. Altick observes,
none of the figures obtainable are above suspicion, and
those that are available are misleading if taken too liter
ally. Several editions— as high as six or seven--might be
issued for one volume of the reviews, and these and single
copies were often passed from hand to hand or went to
subscription reading rooms for those who could not afford
them. The point to be made is that serious, high caliber
journalism simply had an audience limited in all proba
bility to a few thousand. But it went to "the people who
counted."
The Reviews, then, are mirrors of the minds of those
who governed England and shaped opinion. They offer a
spectrum of thought that ranged from the conservatism of
the Quarterly. through Whiggish moderation in the Edin
burgh. to the liberal-radicalism of the Fortnightly. I
have searched them for their thoughts on the idea of democ
racy in general. Debates on that reached a critical stage
in the attempt to extend political power between 1865 and
1867; thereafter division over the idea diminished in
20
Brown, The Metaphysical Society: and E. M. Everett,
The Party of Humanity: The Fortnightly Review and Its Con
tributors: 1865-74 (University N. Carolina. 1939^. p. 321.
91
Altick, The English Common Reader. Appendix C.
19
intensity as it was accepted and its meaning interpreted.
The opinion of the governing classes had then to be exam
ined on those issues that were intertwined with that
political development and which were made important by its
conclusion: education, unionism, the rural worker, the
power of public opinion, party organization, and socialism.
By 1885 the character of English democracy was apparent;
something of its future was revealed.
Now I must sketch the background and setting for
some of the most heated debates and important political
events in 19th century England. The echoes of their impact
on ali levels of English society can still be heard in the
fortresses of the New Conservatism and the Old Liberalism
of our day.
CHAPTER II
THE DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT AND THE REVIEWS TO 1865
It was the best of times, it was the worst of
times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of
foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the
epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light,
it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of
hope, it was the winter of despair, we had every
thing before us, we had nothing before us, we were
all going direct to Heaven, we were all going di
rect the otherway— in short, the period was so far
like the present period, that some of its noisiest
authorities insisted on its being received, for
good or evil, in the superlative degree of com
parison only.
Charles Dickens
A Tale of Two Cities
That was the atmosphere of modern democracy's birth.
It was also the spirit in the air of 1865-67 when England
"leaped"— to some the country was "tricked"--into popular
government. For the opening lines of Dickens' tale nicely
describe the divisive effect of the democratic idea on
society:^ on the one hand the revulsion and vows of resist
ance, the wariness at best, of the upper classes; on the
The work was first published in 1859 and inscribed
to Lord John Russell who introduced his third Reform Bill
in the following year. Actually, though John Bright -talked
of "impending struggle," and reform was the leading domes
tic issue, the period that followed was one of political
stagnation. In 1867 the book was revised and this time it
more aptly described the political atmosphere.
20
other hand, the excitement, the bliss among Utopians and
poets, the stirrings of resentment and hope among the lower
orders. This is the picture that must be remembered when
trying to understand the feelings and thought of the
governing classes on democracy before 1867— indeed, long
after for many. By and large, they could not calmly face
the thought of that disorderly, tumultuous experience
coming to England. This is why the Edinburgh and Quarterly
Reviews. their characters shaped in the cradle of reaction
to the revolution of the late 18th century, had the
greatest difficulty shaking off their distrust or fear of
democracy. The shadows of Jefferson and Robespierre
hovered in editorial comers for most of the century.
The democratic movement in England was associated
with the reform of Parliament, schemes for which had
appeared by at least the middle of the 18th century. One
of the most famous of the early organs for propagating
democratic ideas was the "Society for Constitutional Infor
mation" including in its membership the "Father of Reform,"
Major Cartwright, Lord Derby and an assortment of peers and
members of Parliament. Its program called for universal
male suffrage, equal electoral districts, the ballot, and
payment of members of Parliament. Thus by 1780, more than
half a century before the working classes themselves could
make any widespread attempt to organize a democratic
22
program, their demands had been formulated. It is worth
noting, too, that when democracy did come to England, it
came in this manner: presided over by an Earl of Derby, and
extended from above, not as a result of revolution or
violent popular clamor from below.
The French Revolution, however, produced a profound
reaction to change among the governing classes that lasted
until the 1820's when the workings of the Utilitarian and
laissez faire philosophies had penetrated their ranks. And
even then there was division among the Tories, who governed
England almost constantly from 1783 to 1830. Those like
the Duke of Wellington stood for ancient tradition, the
authority of Throne and Altar, and no foolishness about the
Rights of Man. At best, they followed Burke, who spoke of
society as a living, growing organism linked with the past
as well as the future. At worst, they joined with Lord
Eldon in blind opposition to anything smacking of Jacobin
ism or even Liberalism. The Whigs, having been so long out
of power, were naturally more amenable to change. The old
Whig landlords, like their Tory peers, were essentially
aristocratic in temper, of course, but they continued to
lean toward parliamentary supremacy plus civil and reli
gious freedom. Thus the great symbols of Crown and Church
had not the same aura of sanctity for them. Moreover, they
were joined by increasing numbers of the rising financial
and commercial classes who pressed ever more avidly for
change that would recognize their power in the new indus
trial society then emerging. Lastly, on the far left
Radicals like Major Cartwright worked through their party.
Not that the Whigs favored Radicalism, however. The names
of Tom Paine and William Cobbett were as abhorrent to them
as to the Tories. Utilitarianism was a different matter
though; that increasingly appealed to many in both the Whig
and Tory parties. Its slogans of self-interest, utility,
the greatest happiness of the greatest number pointed the
way to extension of the franchise and to reform. Indeed,
they justified such a wide range of action that Utili
tarianism became the principal ideal motivating not only
liberal reform of the century but driving directly toward
o
the democratic welfare state of the 20th century.
All this was in the future, however. In 1802 there
was no chance of reform. There was only repression of
labor organizations, a famine price for bread, a rising
debt, war weariness, and the unsatisfactory peace of
Amiens. It was no longer "bliss to be alive," England had
become "a fen of stagnant waters." In October of that year
The Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal brought out its
By 1897 J. H. Rose could observe that democracy in
England had become "little more than a machine for pro
ducing the greatest happiness of the greatest number."
The Rise of Democracy (London, 1912), pp. 241-2.
24 i
first issue.
The time was ripe for clear firm thinking, and the
great prototype of modem reviews was designed in the
beginning not only to resist the invasion of unsettling
ideas, but at the same time to give direction to the con
fused, often reactionary thought of the early 19th century.
It hoped to formulate and to conduct actively a Whig policy
by criticizing public measures and enunciating its own
views. Highly opinionated, the Review soon roused sharp
antagonism; but it was refreshingly bold by comparison with
other literary reviews that generally abstained from non-
literary criticism. And there was something to the homage
paid it long afterward by The Nation:
the Edinburgh did for English politics very much
what the writers for the Federalist and the pro
tagonists of the French Revolution had already done
for their respective nations--raised it from the
level of libellous pamphleteering and venal journal
ism to that of serious debate.*'
The Review1s success was rapid; within seven years
Sir Walter Scott, who parted company with the Review in
1808, declared that "no genteel family . . . can pretend to
be without" it.^ It was soon the leading organ of the Whig
party.
Two distinctive features of the Edinburgh contributed
^"A Century of Reviewing," 75 (Nov. 6, 1902), 358-9.
^Edinburgh, 196 (Oct., 1902), 287.
to this success in advancing Whig principles: anonymity
and continuity of policy. By these devices it achieved a
ministerial tone of finality that left little room for
doubt. The individual contributor's piece was "editorial
ized" in line with the overriding principles (as it was
also with the Quarterly), and a consistent policy was main
tained for over a century. The rate of pay was uniform,
with rare exceptions. Gladstone, who contributed in 1870,
was paid at the same rate as the rest. Even the colors,
the buff and blue of the Whig party, as well as the title
page and form of the Review remained the same from begin
ning to end. Its publisher, who paid both editors and
contributors, was Longmans of London except in the years
between 1807 and 1826.
Whiggism was the center of gravity for this remarka
ble periodical even in the latter years of the century
when it was attenuated into Liberalism. Walger Bagehot
described it best:
Perhaps as long as there has been a political
history in this country there have been certain men
of a cool, moderate, resolute firmness, not gifted
with high imagination, little prone to enthusiastic
sentiment, heedless of large theories and specula
tions, careless of dreamy skepticism; with a clear
view of the next step, and a wise intention to take
it; a strong conviction that the elements of knowl
edge are true, and a steady belief that the present
world can, and should, be quietly improved. These
are the Whigs. -5
^"The First Edinburgh Reviewers," Works and Life of
Walter Bagehot. ed. by Mr. Russell Barrington (London,
1915), II, 62.
26
Whiggism was thus at bottom a temper, a way of looking at
life, and from it flowed the natural attempt of these
strong-minded men to influence opinion both inside and out
of Parliament. The connection between the Review and the
world of politics always remained close, so close in fact
that Bagehot once humorously remarked that it was believed
that its contributors were confined to the Privy Council.
Francis Jeffrey, the first real editor, gathered about him
men like Henry Brougham, Francis Horner, John A. (later
Lord) Murray, and Thomas Macaulay. Jeffrey then became
Lord Advocate in 1830, Brougham became Lord Chancellor, and
both continued in close cooperation with the next editor,
Macvey Napier. It was the same with succeeding editors, of
whom more will be said later. Probably the two men who did
most to shape the character of the Review were Jeffrey and
Macaulay. Under them it opposed tife fear of change in
spired by the French Revolution while at the same time
attacking radicalism. It stood for reform of Parliament,
in keeping with Whig principles.
The great rival of this review was founded in 1809.
Seeing the success of their opponents, a group of Tories
approached John Murray, the London agent for the Edinburgh,
and he in turn approached George Canning. The latter con
sented that his cousin Stratford Canning open negotiations,
^Edinburgh, 196 (Oct., 1902), 300.
27 |
1
and in this manner John Murray, who now broke with the j
older review, became "the real founder"^ of The Quarterly |
j
Review. At the time of this writing the Quarterly is
still published by the "Murrays of Albemarle St." Its
i
colors changed from buff to blue in 1957, but in form and j
spirit it remains the same. Like its predecessor, it was
based squarely on the twin principles of anonymity and con
tinuity. Thus, although editors at times admitted articles
they did not agree with, the prevailing philosophy was
Tory-Conservatism, and to maintain its magisterial tone
contributions were revamped in keeping with it.
The aim of the review was to be impartial--which it
could not be--and to "expose all attempts to sap our con-
g
stitutional fabric" — which it vigorously, sometimes mis
takenly, succeeded in doing. It admitted the need for
reform, but any change must be within the constitutional
framework that preserved the power and dignity of the
throne and the altar. From the beginning, the Quarterly
stressed holding on^to principles and traditions and con
tinuously criticized the "shifting" quality of Liberalism
and Radicalism. Thus it tended to take a "long" view of
things, while its opponent concentrated more on immediate,
^Quarterly, 210 (April, 1909), 782.
8Ibid., p. 740.
28 |
tangible problems. Yet, if the Quarterly was slow to see
the need for change, it rarely lapsed into reaction and
generally illustrated Burkean conservatism in the best
sense. Like the Edinburgh, it could be very hardheaded
about "facts" and distrustful of "ideas," especially those
concerned with change.
The first years of the Quarterly were apparently
difficult, though by 1819 its circulation was on a par with
its rival's and for the north-country squire, at least, it
was the "next book to God's Bible.Like the Edinburgh,
it maintained a close connection with men in active poli
tics. Canning himself was an early contributor as well as
supporter of the review. Robert Southey and Sir Walter
Scott (who parted company with the Edinburgh in 1808) were
prominent contributors, but the most constant and contro
versial one was John Wilson Croker, whom Macaulay bitterly
attacked in the Edinburgh and whom Disraeli pilloried as
"Rigby," the shifty politician, in his novel Coningsby. It
was Croker who wrote the article lamenting the passing of
the first Reform Bill.
The Reform Bill of 1832 was not as dreadful as the
Quarterly imagined, though it did deal a blow to some of
the interests it represented. On the surface there was not
Q
Graham, English Literary Periodicals, p. 248.
much change: station and wealth remained the basis of poli
tics, and the House of Commons stayed essentially aristo
cratic. It took money, of course, to run for office; and
most were satisfied to ask of their representative that he
simply be aware of his constituents’ needs. The franchise
supported this too, for it was based on property qualifica-
tions--and it remained so until 1918. The theory that
justified this government by the "Gentlemen of England"--
not altogether undemocratically--had grown up in the 18th
century and lasted until after the second Reform Bill.
Most Englishmen would probably have agreed with the expres
sion of it by Sir Hugh Cairns in 1866:
It is the principle of the English Constitution,
that Parliament should be a mirror--a representa
tion of every class not according to heads, not
according to numbers, but according to everything
which gives weight and importance in the world
without; so that the various classes of this coun
try may be heard, and their views expressed clearly
in the House of Commons, without the possibility of
any one class outnumbering or reducing to silence
all the other classes in the kingdom. 10
Before 1832 it was the old aristocracy that had "weight and
influence"; after that it was increasingly the middle class,
In spite of the surface continuity of politics, how
ever, the bill was a triumph of Commons and the middle
class. For it reduced the power of the Lords and of the
Crown in the constituencies and by a uniform h 10 franchise
1QParl. Deb.. CLXXXII (April 16, 1866), 1463.
30
in the boroughs almost eliminated working class elements.
As noted above, the worker actually had a real voice in the
government of England under the old constitution. There
was such a wide range in the franchise that eleven boroughs
had what amounted to manhood suffrage.^ Gladstone in the
debates of 1866 declared that the workers had had a ma
jority in sixty-five boroughs which returned one hundred
and thirty members, though this assertion was challenged.
The middle class had thus gained political power at the
expense of both the aristocracy and the working class. And
it was a long time before they opened their doors to those
who would "outnumber" all other classes. For it is import
ant to remember that even when the worker did get the vote
and opportunity to become a member of Parliament after
1867, Victorian England did not become a democracy in the
social and egalitarian sense that we think of the word
today. It was not until 1900 that Soames Forsyte even
became conscious of "the populace, the innumerable living
negation of gentility and Forsyte-ism . . . egad!--Democ
racy!"^
The working classes had provided bulk to the reform
movement; they had made public opinion a substantial force
11
Spearman, Democracy in England, p. 11.
12
John Galsworthy, The Forsyte Saga (New York,
1937), p. 559.
that had driven the bill over the opposition of the House
of Lords; but they had not shared in the rewards. More
over, when the new Parliament proceeded to pass the Poor
Law Amendment Act (1834) which put workers in what they
called "Bastilles," it confirmed working class feeling of
having been cheated economically as well as politically and
that there was little to expect from the new government.
Deserted by the Whigs, ignored by the Tories and Philo
sophic Radicals, they turned with increased interest to
unionism, which had been made legal--though not clearly
so— by repeal of the prohibition on "combinations in re
straint of trade" in 1824-25. If they could not get politi
cal power, at least they could better working conditions.
This effort to better their economic position assumed a
federative form that culminated in the Grand National Con
solidated Trades Union. Unfortunately it disintegrated and
the movement collapsed under government crack-down. With
the failure of the federation movement (underscored by the
"martyrdom" of six farm workers transported to Australia),
the workers turned again to political action for control of
Parliament. In 1838 Francis Place and William Lovett of
the London Working Men's Association drew up the Peoples
Charter, which was presented to Parliament three times in
the next decade. The movement that grew around it was the
first really widespread effort of the workers to attain
self-government. It asked for the same points that had
been formulated by the Society for Constitutional Informa
tion back in 1780— manhood suffrage being the main one--and
thus it linked the movement with Major Cartwright and Tom
Paine in the revolutionary period of democracy. Not sur
prisingly then "Clubland" rejected the Charter each time it
was presented and the movement collapsed with the leaders
discredited and divided over the use of force to attain
ends. In 1848, when the Chartists presented their last
petition to Parliament, it was the spectre of democracy
hovering over the councils of Europe that most Englishmen
saw, not Marx's communism.
For approximately twenty years the idea that the
working man might assume political power, quite possibly by
violence, had been present in men's minds. It was not
until at least 1851 that the spectre was finally exorcised;
by that time the workers acquiesced in the middle class
solution of the "Condition of England" question. Pros
perity returned, and a new kind of unionism began to draw
the attention of both.
The old secret unionism that at times had frightened
and outraged so many continued, of course, brought violently
to the attention of all on the eve of the second Reform
Bill by the terrorism of the Sheffield Sawgrinders union.
But the more successful kind of unionism--and probably more
33
representative of that generation from the failure of
Chartism to the dock strike of 1889--was to be seen in
Robert Applegarth's Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and
Joiners. Unions, for Applegarth, were tools for the emanci
pation of the worker; but first they must become respecta
ble and achieve recognition. So, like the popular "prophet
of work," Samuel Smiles, he called for moderation, dis
cipline, work. Add "progress" to this and the catchwords
that guided the generation from the Crystal Palace to the
1880's were complete. Both this kind of union and the
middle class employer agreed: there was to be no drastic
tampering with existing institutions; there must be respect
for, and cooperation between, classes. Balance, politi
cally and economically, not equality, was the ideal of that
age. One day in 1863, Gladstone heard with great approval
the announcement of a labor group which he thought repre
sented the attitude of these skilled workers:
The great measures that nave been passed during
the last twenty years by the British Legislature
have conferred incalculable blessings on the whole
community, and particularly on the working classes.
• • •
Pardon us for alluding to the kindly conduct
now so commonly evinced by the wealthier portions
of the community to assist in the physical and
moral improvement of the working classes. . . .
The humbler classes . . . are duly mindful of the
happy change [from x:lass relations fifty years
earlier] and, without any abatement of manly
independence, fully appreciate the benefits re
sulting therefrom, contentedly fostering a hopeful
34 i
expectation of the future. May heaven favor and
promote this happy mutuality!^
No doubt the Oxford don T. H. Green had this spirit in mind
when he caustically remarked that English society was per
meated by "flunkeyism.” Walter Bagehot, however, was more
charitable when he described it as "deference."
From this kind of unionism, the middle classes, in
any event, had scarcely to fear a radical democratic
seizure of power. But did this represent the rank and file
laborer to whom the vote might be given? It was difficult
to tell, especially since most workers were not in unions.
If attention was focused on the Sheffield Sawgrinders, as
the Quarterly and conservatives tended to do and as the
Edinburgh hesitantly did, it was risky if not foolish to
talk about giving them the vote; if the Amalgamated Car
penters and Joiners or Amalgamated Engineers were held to
be representative of the workers, as the Fortnightly tended
to do, then most could agree that it was only sensible
and just to give them the vote. It was the old question
Americans have been so long divided on: Which unions are
characteristic of the average working man? The Teamsters,
Automobile Workers, or Carpenters? These were the most
13Pari. Deb.. CLXXV (May 11, 1864), 323. Gladstone
was so impressed that he had it read into the record on the
second reading of a private Member’s bill to extend the
franchise.
35
important questions, as we shall see, faced by the govern
ing classes after 1865 when confronted with the issue of
extending the franchise. Where was the line to be drawn so
that only the intelligent and interested could join in the
governance of England? Perhaps Americans have still to
prove that they have done better by giving the vote to all,
whether they want the power or not.
Reform of the franchise was a perennial issue in the
14
1850's and 1860's, more because of the delicate political
balance than because of any popular demand or working class
pressure. Indeed, it should be emphasized that the latter
had little to do with the second reform movement. The
public at large was apathetic and indifferent, partly
because the reform spirit of the 1830's had run down, and
partly because it sensed, as Mill said, that both political
parties had lost faith in their creeds.^ Nor did the
ideas of democracy or socialism that were associated with
the workers have much to do with it. It was the other way
round; after the last Chartist petition, fear of democracy
as a concomitant of giving the vote to workers delayed
passage of the second Reform Bill. In spite of this
14
There is a good account of this by F. H. Herrick,
"The Second Reform Movement," Journal of the History of
Ideas. IX, no. 2 (April, 1948), 174-92.
is
■^Quoted by J. Holland Rose, The Rise of Democracy.
p. 170.
36
atmosphere, bills to extend the vote were offered regularly,
even if they evoked little response. In general they were
of a moderate nature aimed at making Parliament more effi
cient by giving the franchise to the best of those not yet
represented and in such a way that there would be no whole
sale swamping by illiterates. As yet, the radical idea
that every man not disqualified had a right to vote had
very fex> 7 subscribers. The bills of Lord John Russell and
Benjamin Disraeli, for example, based the franchise on bank
accounts, income or rental, and, like Mill, would give the
franchise to all graduates of universities. Disraeli
offered a bill in 1859 attempting to give what he called a
"lateral” extension of the vote. It created a number of
franchises for doctors, clergy, graduates and East India
Company stockholders--"fancy franchises" Bright dubbed
them. Gladstone supported the bill saying that he did not
want any wide extension that might bring a "dead level of
16
mediocrity" and ultimately destroy liberty. But that was
the last time he spoke and voted on a major issue as a Con
servative. Five years later he sounded like a democrat.
While Lord Russell was busy wrecking Disraeli's bill, pre
paratory to launching his own, John Bright made a series
of proposals which, with a few variations, became the basis
16Parl. Deb.. CLIII (Mar. 29, 1859), 1056.
of Disraeli’s Reform Bill of 1867. He suggested extending
the h 10 borough franchise to the counties and lowering the
borough to household suffrage, plus a lodger vote. At the
same time he summoned the Radical wing of the middle class
to join with the workers and he would lead them in the
17
"impending struggle." His friend Richard Cobden, more
ominously, suggested that if a portion of the workers were
not admitted to the constitution there might be a revolu-
18
tion as there had been in France in 1848. But these two
were in a distinct minority and for remarks like these they
became demagogues to most of the governing classes. Punch
caught the spirit of the times best when it showed a very
indifferent British lion being prodded by the spears of
Bright, Russell, and Disraeli with their reform schemes.
"Who Will Rouse Him?" it asked.
The answer was no one, for the next six years. It
was the second and last ministry of Lord Palmerston, the
symbol of compromise between the two parties. Not that he
was opposed in principle to any extension of the franchise;
■^Speech at Birmingham, Oct. 27, 1858. Reprinted
in, John Bright, Speeches on Questions of Public Policy.
J. E. T. Rogers, ecL (London, 1869), p. 291.
18
Speech at Rochdale, Aug. 18, 1859. Reprinted in,
Bullock, Allan and Maurice Shock, eds., The Liberal Tradi
tion: from Fox to Keynes (New York University, 1957),
p. 134.
19XXXVI (Mar. 12, 1859), 105.
he would have liked to admit the move successful and more
intelligent workman. But he felt that those who were
clamoring for the reform were mere manipulators of the
20
lower classes for their own benefit. Besides, although
he was the spokesman for Liberalism in its heyday, his out
look and habits had been shaped in the pre-Reform era and
he carried this spirit with him, particularly in domestic
matters. Some chafed under his rule, but most were content
to let him keep the balance. In 1864 he thought that there
21
was "really nothing to be done"; perhaps a little law or
banking reform, but that was enough. And Conservatives
22
were firmly in agreement with him. To his "horror," how
ever, his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gladstone, on the
second reading of a Liberal private member’s bill to lower
the franchise, ventured "to say that every man who is not
presumably incapacitated by some consideration of personal
unfitness or of political danger, is morally entitled to
23
come within the pale of the Constitution." Many, if not
most, thought he was recommending the right of universal
suffrage. The queen was "deeply grieved"; and Disraeli,
20
E. L. Woodward, The Age of Reform: 1815-1870
(Oxford, 1938), p. 163.
2^Loc. cit.
22Philip Magnus, Gladstone (New York, 1954), p. 161.
23Pari. Deb.. CLXXV (May 11, 1864), 324.
seizing upon it, announced that "the days of Tom Paine had
returned, . . . that Rousseau was to be rivalled in a new
social contract."24 Gladstone was surprised at the con
struction put on his remarks and tried hastily to assure
everyone that he was no democrat. Certainly he was not,
but an important change was coming over him. The man who
had begun his political life with such a distrust of
liberty that he thought he detected what he called "an
element of anti-Chris t"2' * in the Reform Act of 1832 was
becoming "The Peoples William." He had come to believe
that the working class, through moderation and restraint
had earned the right to vote because "it had submitted it-
self to a process of moral self-enfranchisement." Thus
what he probably had in mind when he made his celebrated
remark was that the government would be more efficient and
stable if the vote were given to all who were morally fit
to exercise the privilege. Samuel Smiles, Robert Apple
garth and the Edinburgh Review would probably have heartily
agreed. This was the authentic, middle class voice of the
second reform movement. As long as Palmerston was Prime
Minister, however, it would not move Parliament to action.
24Parl. Deb., CLXXVIII (May 8, 1865), 1701.
O C j
^Magnus, Gladstone, p. xii.
26Ibid.. p. 164.
His death was almost a necessity before the franchise could
be extended. When he died, in the fall of 1865, the way
was opened for a new attempt at reform, a new era of stress
and activity.
Journalism, too, reflected the beginning of the new
age and its conflict with the old. In Hay of 1865, little
more than a month after Lincoln and Cobden had died, The
Fortnightly Review, the most important literary periodical
of the second half of the century, appeared. The two older
reviews still had influence, of course, but they no longer
overshadowed all others as they had in the first half of
the century. Reflecting the slump in the political life of
the Victorian Compromise, the Edinburgh and the Quarterly
had declined after the first Reform Bill. Party lines had
become blurred, and other reviews like the Athenaeum.
Spectator, and Saturday Review, had entered the field.
Still, they had to be reckoned with and both revived in the
new era of politics after Palmerston’s death.
The Edinburgh is the least dynamic of the three in
this period, perhaps because it had the most difficult
position to defend as a cautious moderate in a time of
change and high tempers. Added to this, the Liberal party
itself became increasingly divided between radical and con
servative wings--bitterly so, as we shall see, on the issue
of democracy. The editor throughout the period under
41 i
consideration was Henry Reeve, "a liberal of the old
27
type” who endeavored to continue the Edinburgh* s tradi
tion of a cautious empirical approach grounded on the Whig
character. He had largely directed the foreign policy of
the Times before joining the Review and had become intimate
^ ^ 28
with the most distinguished men of his time. Like his
editorial predecessor, Sir George Cornwall Lewis, who went
on to hold office under Lord John Russell and Lord Palmers
ton, Reeve maintained a close contact with the political
world. Under him the Review took Lord Russell's Essay on
the History of English Government and Constitution as its
text. Popular elements must be admitted to the constitu
tion, but only the morally and economically advanced that
would not upset the balance of the classes. ”The intoler
ance of a despotism and of a democracy are alike unknown in
the temperate zone of our ancient form of government.
That was the guide line from Lord John's book. The Review
then supported Gladstone in his great reforms until 1874.
After that it questioned his leadership, fearing that the
Liberal party was falling into the hands of the radicals
and straying from ”Plain Whig Principles." In 1882 it
27
Dictionary of National Biography.
^Loc. cit.
^Edinburgh. 122 (July, 1865), 261.
42 I
split with him.
The Quarterly fared better than its rival and entered
one of the most brilliant periods in its whole history,
partly because conservatism was roused and had clearly
something to fight for, partly because of the able editor,
Sir William Smith who, continuing the traditions of his
predecessors, was friendly with such men as Gladstone, Dean
Stanley, Lecky, Arnold,, and, most important, Robert Cecil
(Lord Cranbome, 1865; Marquess of Salisbury, 1868), the
•3Q
future Prime Minister. At this point something must be
said about the man who became the philosophic leader of the
Tories and whose spirit dominated the Quarterly.
Although the Review adhered scrupulously to its
31
policy of anonymity, Lord Salisbury’s powerful, brilliant
style could not be concealed. Indeed, it still stands out
and his articles still make excellent reading. That gave
the Review added prestige, of course, particularly when
they had such immediate political effect as they did on
Gladstone, for example, in 1866.“ ^ Between 1860 and 1883
30
Prime Minister and Secty. of St. for Foreign
Affairs: July 1885 to Feb. 1886; Aug. 1886 to Aug. 1892;
June 1895 to July 1902.
31
No record of authors was kept; they were paid
"bearer cheques" made out to author of article number 1, 2,
7, and so on; no endorsement or signature was required.
The system lasted until anonymity was given up in the 20th
century.
^2See p. 13.
he contributed thirty-three articles, most of them in the
years before 1873. It seems quite likely that, as long as
Disraeli was the Tory leader, these anonymous "essays more
truly portray the man than anything he said or did within
the cramping limitations of parliamentary procedure or
under the restraining influence of party and ministerial
33
responsibility." His biographer, moreover, asserts that
the whole of his later political philosophy is to be found
in them.3^ Their constant theme, according to the Quar
terly, was "the central doctrine of Conservatism, that it
is better to endure almost any political evil than to risk
35
a breach of the historic continuity of government." To
the Quarterly at least, that meant Burkean, true Conserva
tism; to its opponents it meant immobility. It also meant
that, like the Edinburgh later on, the old Review would
distrust the new party leader and reflect the division in
the political ranks. For Lord Salisbury greatly disliked
Disraeli and thought him an "unprincipalled Jew" who
flirted too much with the masses and whose democratic ten
dencies could only lead to anarchy. Salisbury’s article in
the Quarterly after the 1867 bill was thus one of the most
33Quarterlv, 199 (Jan., 1904), 298.
34
Kennedy, Salisbury, p. 192.
35199 (Jan., 1904), 300.
damning indictments ever made of Disraeli. How ironic that
the man who viewed democracy as being as much a perversion
of government as tyranny, who became one of the greatest
opponents of democracy in his age, should be given the
second longest time in the 19th century as Prime Minister
to guide England after she adopted that form of government.
No doubt the English, at bottom, were as distrustful as he
was of that system.
While Salisbury and the Quarterly inveighed against
the perils of change, there appeared in the March and April
issues of the Saturday Review the prospectus of a new
periodical that would soon become "the most talked about
journal in England."-^ The Fortnightly Review was to be
come a well of fresh-flowing ideas that revealed the dyna
mism of the change transforming England after 1865; it was
to help further the democratic movement far beyond what
Cobden and his friend Bright intended; it was to goad and
put on the defensive the two older Reviews which it soon
outranked. It was a rebel from the beginning.
The prospectus of the Fortnightly announced that its
model would be the Revue des Deux Mondes which had already
set a high standard of "disinterested criticism" in France.
The Fortnightly Review . . . will address the cul
tivated readers of all classes by its treatment of
topics specially interesting to each; and it is
^Brown, The Metaphysical Society . . .. p. 224.
hoped that the latitude which will be given to the
expression of individual opinion may render it
acceptable to a very various public. As one means
of securing the best aid of the best writers on
questions of Literature, Art, Science. Philosophy,
Finance, and Politics generally, we propose to
remove all those restrictions of party and of edi
torial •'consistency' 1 which in other journals
hamper the full ana free expression of opinion;
and we shall ask each writer to express his own
views and sentiments with all the force of sin
cerity. He will never be required to express- the
views of an Editor or of a Party. He will not be
asked to repress opinions or sentiments because
they are distasteful to an Editor, or inconsistent
with what may have formerly appeared in the Review.
He will be asked to say what he really thinks and
feels; to say it on his own responsibility, and to
leave its appreciation to the public. . . . The
Fortnightly Review will seek its public amid all
parties. . . . It must not be understood from
this that the Review is without its purpose, or
without a consistency of its own; but the con
sistency will be one of tendency, not of doctrine;
and the purpose will be that of aiding Progress in
all directions.37
It thus struck at the two basic tenets of the older jour
nalism established by the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews:
anonymity and partisanship. It was to be freed from the
*30
dictates of parties or the "interest of any tradesman";
its ideal was to allow the "free play of the mind" as
Mathew Arnold put it. The signed article and open discus
sion of conflicting views, it felt, was much more in keep
ing with political and economic developments of an age
37
The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature,
Science, and Art, Mar. 25, 1865.
38
Arthur Waugh, "The Biography of a Periodical,"
Fortnightly, 126 (Oct. 1, 1929), 515.
46!
OQ
opening on to democracy. 7 The Fortnightly paid a price
for this rebellious character, of course. It had not that
Privy Council quality of the older journals and sounded
like an outsider; but it more than made up for any loss of
ministerial tone by the quality of the men who contributed.
Accounts of the founding are "rare, brief, and con
tradictory."^ Anthony Trollope, James Cotter Morison, and
Frederick Chapman were the most prominent of the men in-
/ 1
volved; possibly Walter Bagehot was among them. The
original backers lost h 8,000, however, and the Review was
sold to its publishers, Chapman and Hall. Despite the
initial economic difficulties, "it was soon lying on every
clubroom table, and its contents were discussed and com
bated, wherever politicians and scientists were congre-
42
gated." The old Quarterly, too, soon recognized the
power and vigor of its young opponent and bitterly criti
cized the new radical journalism that was being "read by
thousands." There was good reason for this. The first
39
John Morley, "Anonymous Journalism," Fortnightly,
8 (Sept. 1, 1867), 287-92.
^Everett, The Party of Humanity, n. 27, p. 336.
41Ibid., p. 17.
L l' )
Waugh, "The Biography of a Periodical," p. 515.
43"The New School of Radicals," 124 (April, 1868),
477-504; and again, 144 (Oct., 1877), 515-39.
issue contained as its lead article the first chapter of
Bagehot's brilliant diagnosis of The English Constitution
(to be followed, when that was completed in the June 1867
issue, by his Physics and Politics); the second article was
the first two chapters of Anthony Trollope’s The Belton
Estate (which also continued to run serially); and there
were articles by George Eliot, George Henry Lewes (the
first editor), J. F. W. Herschel (M0n Atoms”), and Frederic
Harrison (soon to be a member of the Royal Commission on
Trade Unions) who sympathetically analyzed the issues be
hind the strike of the Iron-Masters* Trade Union. There
was something for everybody. But it was the quality that
counted: two of the best and most popular novelists of the
day, a great astronomer, and two whose fame was yet to
come, but who, each in his own fine style, quite stripped
the old liberals and conservatives of their frowzy politi
cal and economic garments. The old Reviews would have to
have more than cliches to meet Bagehot and Harrison.
The quality of the Review* s first issue was main
tained and often excelled in the next twenty years. John
Morley succeeded to the editorship in January of 1867^ and
^Asa Briggs in his fine new re-assessment of the
age thinks Bagehot and Trollope "most surely describe the
essentials of life in the late fifties and sixties.”
Victorian People (Univ. of Chicago, 1955), p. 87.
^■*The Review also then became a monthly instead of
a fortnightly.
held that position until 1881 - nt inuing to draw the
greatest names in England t i.ffiBSw^eview. Mor ley's watch
word was freedom of thought ana judgement, not only for the
contributors, but for himself; and apparently editorial
independence went unquestioned until the appearance of
Swinburne's rebellious "Russia: an Ode" which was even
questioned in the House of Commons. That was under Frank
Harris' editorship, however, and the proprietors then
inserted a clause in the next editor's contract (W. L.
Courtney, 1894-1928) to the effect that the publishers had
the right to see the table of contents before publishing
A £
and the right to veto any article.
Despite the fact that the Fortnightly began on an
eclectic basis and continued so in theory under Morley, it
did not remain immune from a political and philosophical
bias. For Morley was a Rationalist, a leader of the
Comtist school, and the chief interpreter of Mill's philo
sophy after the latter's death. Slowly his views came to
pervade the Review. Moreover, even though the people who
gathered around Morley differed in their opinions and
criticism, they "combined in their detestation of middle-
class ignorance and complacency.Thus the Review began
^Waugh, "The Biography of a Periodical," p. 520.
47
Arthur Waugh, A Hundred Years of Publishing
(London, 1930), p. 164.
to lose its ability to unite Liberals with its "disinter
ested criticism" and tolerance. Like the Edinburgh, by
1874 when Gladstone resigned the leadership of the party,
it clearly reflected the division in the Liberal party.
Both had supported Gladstone before that date, but the
Fortnightly, speaking for the more dynamic wing of the
party, tended to press on farther to the left than the
Prime Minister did, while the old Edinburgh, illustrating
the plight of the Whigs in a party increasingly cool to
their old traditions, tended to hold back trying to keep
things in line with the policies of Lord Russell and Lord
Palmerston. After 1874 Gladstone’s influence gave way to
that of Morley's new friend Joseph Chamberlain, and to
gether those two would write the "Radical Programme" which
appeared in the Fortnightly in 1883, the eve of the third
Reform Bill. The Quarterly rarely missed an opportunity to
point out the division between its opponents, but in fact
the Tory-Conservative party was also divided, a fact pub
licized by the founding of the National Review in 1883 to
speak for the new conservatives that the old Tory party did
not understand. But all this is at the end of a story that
begins in 1865. In that year the issue of Democracy sud
denly loomed very large, and England had to face it.
CHAPTER III
THE PASSING OF AN OLD ORDER: 1865
The death of Lord Palmerston may be said to have
closed the transition period through which this
country passed in its progress from aristocracy to
democracy.
Low and Sanders
The History of England
During the Reign of
Victoria
It was the end of an age, it was the beginning of an
age. It was the year of Lord Palmerston's death and Lord
Northcliffe's birth. For some it was a time of crisis and
a revolution impended; for others, it was all smoke and no
fire. It was 1865, an old order visibly passing, the marks
of a new one just emerging. In the twenty years that fol
lowed England moved through a series of events and shades
of thought, sometimes bewildering and confusing in their
rapidity, to a new society separated by a gulf from the old
one of Victoria's prime. The chief political aspect of
this change was the development of democracy.
The story of the men and events around which thought
gathered in this transformation begins with the conclusion
of the American Civil "War. England had uneasily followed
50
51
the course of that terrible conflict. As John Morley said
of it: partisanship on the American issue veiled a hidden
English civil war, and the triumph of the North was "the
force that made English Liberalism powerful enough to
enfranchise the workman, depose official Christianity in
Ireland, and deal a first blow at the land-lords.Thus
when the North triumphed, it was regarded as a victory of
democracy; and John Bright, the man who was most often
associated with this vindication of popular sovereignty,
opened a new campaign to extend the vote. During the war
he had likened America to a "lifeboat" for the workers of
England and Europe. Millions had gone there, he said, to
find political rights, freedom of opportunity, and an
absence of class stratification. Now, in 1865, the fact
that five to six million Englishmen were "insultingly" shut
out of representation when they could have it if they went
to the United States or elsewhere in the Empire, Bright
- 3
thought was "dangerous, and . . . cannot last." England
must heed the American example before it was too late.
Only a spark was all that was needed to start a revolution
^Fortnightly. n.s. VIII (Oct., 1870), 478.
2
Speech at Rochdale, Feb. 3, 1863. Reprinted in,
Bright, Speeches, pp. 115-23.
3
Speech at Birmingham, Jan. 18, 1865. Ibid..
pp. 329“42.
52
in 1831-32; it was the same in 1865. Conservatism, whe
ther of the Tory or of the Whig variety, was provoking a
national peril.
The time will come when . . . if wisdom does not
take the place of folly, the voters will burst
their banks, and these men, who fancy they axe
stemming this imaginary apparition of democracy,
will be swept away by the resolute will of a
united and determined people.^
This was the kind of language that earned a reputation for
Bright in the governing classes as a demagogue or an enrage,
one who ought somehow to be stopped from spreading his
revolutionary incendiarism.
Conservatives bristled, and the old Quarterly issued
a dire prophecy. Most educated men, it said (probably cor
rectly), were sympathetic with the South. The North was a
despotic mob with a Vandal policy on a par with that of
Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, and Catherine the Great. It was
"fighting for a very ancient and vulgar object of war . . .
a struggle for empire."'* Thus the imperialism of this
Northern government should serve as a warning to all who
might believe in the "generosity or the justice of a pure
democracy." Indeed, violence and imperialism were inherent
in the very nature of democracy as the pattern of the
4
Bright, Speeches. p. 341.
■*"The United States as an Example," Quarterly, 117
(Jan., 1865), 252.
i
53
French Revolutions of 1789 and 1848 had already illustrated
and the American Civil War repeated. If John Bright and
his kind wanted this for England, let them beware:
We have seen democracy both in its contemptible
and in its terrible aspect, in the weakness of an
apathetic security, and in the frenzy of an un
bridled passion. In the enjoyment of a prosperity
conferred by boundless natural resources, it was
incapable of the self-restraint necessary for
sustaining an effective system of government. Its
insatiable taste for adulation degraded statesman
ship into a disreputable craft; and it failed to
produce rulers able either to avoid or to foresee
the danger upon which its splendid promise has
been shattered. When the hour of trial came, its
institutions were found to be too feeble to bear
the strain, until propped up by the perilous sup
port of a military despotism. Now we see the
government of the multitude under its other aspect.
It is animated by a passion as thoughtless and un
reasonable as its former security. All care for
the prosperity which formerly was its first care,
all thought of freedom, all scruples of humanity,
have been swallowed up in the one longing for a
colossal empire. . . . It proclaims, and is
straining every nerve to execute, a scheme of
slaughter and devastation, upon a scale so gigan
tic and so ruthless that no civilized government
has ever even approached to it before. . . . We
have a fair picture of democracy under both its
conditions before us. We know what is its
capacity for good government in repose; we know
what is its justice or its humanity, what its re
gard for the rights or the freedom of a minority,
in times of trouble. If with this knowledge in
their possession, the classes who govern in this
country, and who are in a minority, suffer them
selves to be enticed into an advance toward democ
racy, their recompense will not be slow to reach
them, and will be richly merited when it comes.®
^"The U. S. as an Example,*1 Quarterly. 117 (Jan.,
, 1865), 286.
5 4!
Afterwards, in calmer tones, however, the Quarterly
repeatedly put the question for conservatives to England
that made even the most liberal sympathizers with the
United States give pause: why should we entrust our politir
cal life, our Constitution, to a democracy when we have so
many recent illustrations of how dangerous a form of
government it can be? Surely, it asked, the examples of
the French Revolution and the American Civil War can
scarcely be said to be encouraging for an experiment with
democracy.^
And thoughtful people like the editor of the Edin-
Q
burgh who were acquainted with de Tocqueville and Mill,
the acknowledged authorities on democracy, agreed and hesi
tated:
Had M. De Tocqueville lived to witness the dis
ruption of the great Confederation which he visited
and described in the days of its greatest pros
perity . . . the event would have excited in his
mind more sorrow than surprise. . . . He was of
opinion that the democratic element is by its
nature so inconstant and destructive a character,
that it is extremely doubtful whether a permanent,
regular and free government can be established and
^See the Quarterly, 119 (1866), 530-59.
Q
Henry Reeve, the first to translate Democracy in
America into English in 1835. He brought out subsequent
editions that were extensively used in the U.S. as well as
in England. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America,
Henry Reeve Text, revised by Francis Bowen, further cor
rected and edited by Phillips Bradley, Vintage Books (New
York: Knopf, 1954), Appendix II.
55
maintained on purely democratic principles, even
with the assistance of wise artificial institu- g
tions, and on the soil best adopted to its growth.
De Tocqueville, however, like Mill, whom he deeply
impressed,held a dualistic view of democracy that
offered arguments in support of Liberals and Radicals as
well as Conservatives. Both sides, in fact, appealed to
him in the debates over the second Reform Bill, just as
they had done after the first.^ For if he feared the
tyranny of the majority and the fickleness of public
opinion, he was also optimistic about the possibility of
improving conditions for all the people under a democracy.
Moreover, like Marx, though with far more influence at the
time and, I think, with deeper, truer vision, he foretold
the rise of democracy as an "inevitable" process. And it
is this view of democracy that played an important part in
the debates of the time. In the Introduction to the first
9
From Reeve's Introduction to the 1862 edition,
quoted by Herrick, "The Second Reform Movement," Journal of
the History of Ideas. April, 1948, ft.note, p. 186.
•^de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, II, 412.
Mill was the first to review the work in England (1835,
London and Westminster Review): and the appraisal "in
tensely pleased" the author who wrote him about it. Mill
had said: "M. de Tocqueville*s picture is in our eyes, the
true view of the position in which mankind now stand; and
on the timely recognition of it as such, by the influential
classes of our own and other countries, we believe the most
important interests of our race to be greatly dependent.
• L1Ibid., p. 422.
56
edition (repeated in the 1848 preface to the 12th edition)
he had observed:
The gradual development of the principle of
equality is, therefore, a providential fact. It
has all the characteristics of such a fact: it is
universal, it is lasting, it constantly eludes all
human interference, and all events as well as all
men contribute to its progress.
Would it, then, be wise to imagine that a social
movement the causes of which lie so far back can be
checked by the efforts of one generation? Can it
be believed that the democracy which has overthrown
the feudal system and vanquished kings will retreat
before tradesmen and capitalists? Will it stop now
that it has grown so strong and its adversaries so
weak?12
Conservatives like Lowe and Salisbury objected strenuously
to this 1 1 fatalistic" argument, while their opponents saw in
it all the more reason for hastening the process of change.
If conservatives seemed to hold an excessively dim
view of American democracy and an "unwholesome sympathy for
13
the would-be Slave Power" of the South, most of the
governing classes agreed with them that the United States
did have an inclination towards imperialism. Most seemed
to see behind all considerations of Americans "the old un
dying dream of continental occupation. Most agreed,
too, that British institutions were superior to anything
12
de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, I, 6.
13"Public Affairs," Forthightly, 2 (Oct., 1865), 762.
^"America, France, and England," Fortnightly. 3
(Jan. 1, 1866), 446. ---
57 !
America had to offer, that Bright was much too pro-
American, and that the statesmen of the threatened northern
neighbor would do well as they prepared for federation to
ignore his suggestions of independence or annexation to the
United States. They ought never to "forget that if their
independence is to be maintained, it will be by contrasting
the principles of British Parliamentary Government in
Canada with the purely republican and democratic institu
tions of the United States.
If the liberal followers of Gladstone and Bright
were divided on the issue of American democracy per se,
most were agreed that the victory of the democratic North
had had a moral righteousness about it that the slave-
1
holding South could never have had if it had won. And
most Liberals were more willing than Conservatives to try
to understand the problems of America and were more eager
for a return to normal activities once the war was over.
The apparently rapid settlement, it was thought, should re
assure those who feared "the fierce democracy." Thus in
the year following the conclusion of the Civil War the
Fortnightly could say that:
15
"Todd on Parliamentary Government," Edinburgh, 125
(April, 1867), 579.
1 6
"Reconstruction of the American Union," Edinburgh,
123 (April, 1866), 524-56.
of the Civil War and death of Lincoln there began in
Parliament the first of a series of some of the greatest
debates of the century that did not end until the second
Reform Bill of 1867. The issue was Democracy versus the
Constitution of England. The governing classes were agreed
that the former was incompatible with English institutions,
but they were not at all in agreement on what would make
the country democratic. Therein lay much conflict.
A private Liberal member, Edward Baines, had intro
duced a bill to extend the franchise in the boroughs. He
had done so regularly before; it was his bill only the ' T ' r - . a r
before that had prompted Gladstone to make his celebrated
remarks that were interpreted as a sign that he had been
converted to Radicalism. "Baines Bother," as Punch called
19
it, was a modest bill like most of the others in the pre
ceding fifteen years. On the second reading of it in May
he estimated that about 400,000 voters would be added, of
which approximately 300,000 would be upper and middle
class. The remainder would be from the working class and
these in all likelihood would continue to return repre
sentatives from the educated wealthy class. He urged
Parliament to "correct the wrong" of keeping the most in
telligent workers out of political power and to do it soon,
191865 (May 13), 189.
60 |
while there was still peace and quiet rather than wait for
the inevitable demand for the vote to grow angry and tur-
20
bulent. Debates followed in a routine manner. Lord
Elcho voiced the common fear that the lowering of the fran
chise would remove incentive for the workers to rise. If
the worker really wanted to vote he had only to give up
drinking one quart of beer a day and the amount saved would
be enough to gain him the L 10 annual rent qualification.
Besides, most workers were ”improvident and ignorant1 1 and
would soon swamp the intelligent elements; once you started
moving the qualification down there would be no stopping
short of universal suffrage. The constitution was sound;
it needed no tinkering. Another member saw the bill as
revolutionary, while a third saw it as quite insufficient
and hinted darkly of Trade Union organization and the
rising power of the workers who would demand far more than
what had been offered.
Then Robert Lowe, the Liberal member for Caine,
stood up and in an impassioned speech that bluntly chal
lenged his party and Parliament’s handling of the issue,
lifted the whole discussion to the level of the great
debates in 1831-32. The two great parties, he said, were
flirting with democracy .-and the destruction of the British
20Parl. Deb., CXXVII (1865), 1371-1402.
58
the United States have exhibited a wealth, a
strength, an organization, a temperance and modera
tion after their great successes, which show that
universal suffrage and the freest institutions are
compatible with a well-ordered state, where life
and property are secure, and that an elected presi
dent is able to sustain the honour of the country,
and to keep up a military and a naval array which
can vie with those of the proudest monarchies of
Europe.
Perhaps more remarkable than this contrast with conserva
tive thought, at a time when the Alabama settlement quarrel
was accompanied by frequent outbursts of a strident anti-
English spirit on the part of many Americans and at a time
when German and French activities loomed large on the in
ternational scene, there remained for a very few Englishmen
an intriguing fascination with the nation of the future:
. . . that great people who may bless
Or curse mankind: they have the might.
The strange experimental land
Where men continually dare take
Niagara leaps;— unshatter’d stand
'Twixt fall and fall;--for conscience sake,
Drive onward like a flood’s increase.^
If the victory of the North was interpreted as a
vindication of democracy, it did not mean that Englishmen
were willing to adopt that form of government or even move
in that direction. Within one month after the conclusion
17,1 Public Affairs,” 6 (Sept. 15, 1866), 358.
18
George Meredith, "Lines to a Friend Visiting
America,” [John Morley] Fortnightly. 8 (Dec. 1, 1867),
727-8.
constitution, just as they had been doing since Disraeli’s
bill of 1859. For the past six years they had been tossing
the issue about like "a young lady and young gentleman
playing at battledore and shuttlecock. After tossing the
shuttlecock from one to the other a few times, they let it
21
drop and begin to flirt.1 Lowe flatly rejected the
"natural rights" approach to reform. He denied the validi
ty of the "fatalistic" reason for reform given by de Tocque
ville and Mill, insisting that the destiny of England
rested with Englishmen, not with some inevitable historical
movement. Nor was the argument of "necessity" valid.
There was no actual grievance of the workers that Baines'
bill would remedy. Like Lord Elcho he agreed that the h 10
franchise had worked well, that the way to better the
worker's lot was to keep some stimulus for him to rise.
Citing Gladstone's estimate that the average Englishman
drank 600 quarts of beer a year, he argued that the worker
had only to forego 120 quarts per year and he would save
enough to acquire the franchise. That was all that was
required of the workers to raise themselves to a decent
living standard and the vote. "The question for you now to
determine," he flung at Parliament was:
whether you ought to bring down the franchise to
the level of those persons who have no such sense
of decency or morality, and of what is due to the
21Parl. Deb.. CXXVII (1865), 1440.
health of themselves and their children--whether
you will degrade the franchise into the dirt, and
imperil your institutions— or whether you will
make this franchise a vast instrument of good, a
lever by which you may hope to elevate the working
classes— not in the manner which a" mawkish senti
mentality contemplates [a jibe at Gladstone], but
by fixing the franchise at a reasonable level,
requiring a little, and only a little, effort and
self-denial on their part, a little security that
they are able to conduct their own affairs before
we entrust them with ours.
Lowering the franchise would lead directly to universal
suffrage, he went on; the workers will not rest until they
get it once the qualifications are lowered. The bill would
satisfy no one, and England would be cast "adrift on the
ocean of democracy without chart or compass." It would be
the end of the British constitution. Therefore, Lowe
urged, the Liberal party ought to review its position. A
general election would be coming shortly (in July), and it
was a momentous issue that faced the country:
The great Liberal party may well be presumed to
know its own business better than I do. I venture,
however, to make this prediction, that if they do
unite their fortunes with the fortunes of democ
racy, as it is proposed they should do in the case
of this measure, they will not miss one of two
things— if they fail in carrying this measure they
will ruin their party, and if they succeed in
carrying this measure they will ruin their coun
try. 23
"The House was astonished, but cheered."24 Only
22Parl. Deb., CXXVII (1865), 1432.
23Ibid.. 1440.
24Punch, 1865 (May 13), 189.
Gladstone could have answered Lowe; but he did not. Sir
George Grey spoke for the government, defending it on the
grounds that it wa3 living up to its pledges for reform
which it had given at the very beginning of the session.
There had, however, been no clear demand for reform either
in or out of Parliament. The government could not proceed
faster than public demand on such an issue. Besides,
though the member for Caine had made an able speech, Sir
George did not agree at all that lowering the franchise
o c
would lead to democracy. J The Times agreed; the govern-
ment was doing the only sensible thing. But there was
much criticism of both the bill and the government in the
debates that followed. Disraeli, the spokesman of the Con
servative party, was the last to speak. And the man who,
two years later would fascinate, charm or enrage all
England with his maneuvers in the passage of his own reform
bill that introduced democracy, now agreed with Lowe on the
basic issue. The bill was bad, he said; it only dealt with
a portion of one of the most difficult problems facing the
country. The government should handle it, not a private
M.P. But there was not enough desire for change as yet;
reform was premature. He himself believed in reform,
25Parl. Deb.. CXXVII (1865), 1629-40.
^^May 4, 1865, p. 11, col. 3; and May 9, p. 12,
cols. 1-2.
though it should not be radical. As he had long contended,
there should be a Mlateral" extension of the franchise—
i.e., among the classes who already had the vote— so that
the "suffrage should remain a privilege, and not a right--
a privilege to be gained by virtue, by intelligence, by
industry, by integrity, and to be exercised for the common
27
good/' Skirting the concept of "Conservative Democracy"
that would later play such an important part in the passage
of his own bill, he went on in rather florid terms:
It is a question between an aristocratic Govern
ment in the proper sense of the term--that is, a
Government by the best men^of all classes--and a
democracy. I doubt very much whether a democracy
is a Government that would suit this country.2°
Parliament should not be misled, the central issue before
it was whether to retain the existing constitution--though
not its constituent body--and a democratic one.
You have . . . an ancient, powerful, richly en
dowed Church and perfect religious liberty. You
have unbroken order and complete freedom. You
have landed estates as large as the Romans, com
bined with commercial enterprise such as Carthage
and Venice united never equalled. And you must
remember that this peculiar country with these
strong contrasts is not governed by force; it is
not governed by standing armies; it is governed by
a most singular series of traditionary influences
. . . and with this . . . you have created the
greatest empire of modern times. . . . Under
these circumstances, I hope the House, when the
27Pari. Deb.. CXXVII (1865), 1702.
2®Loc. cit.
question before us in one impeaching the character
of our Constitution will hesitate— that it will
sanction no step that has a tendency to democracy,
but that they 'will maintain the ordered state of
free England in which we live.29
Disraeli's voice coupled with Robert Lowe's warnings
had its effect. Neither Conservatives with their Liberal
allies whose doubts and fears were awakened on the one
side, nor the dissatisfied left wing of the Liberals on the
other were willing to pass the bill and it was defeated 288
to 214.30
Reaction to the debates was quick and clear. For
conservatives, Lowe's challenge to his party had given
"expression to the opinion of the overwhelming majority of
Q I
the educated classes." There was no need for reform at
the present, the Quarterly said. The time might come when
the workers would clamor with some unanimity for political
power; but if the demand assumed the democratic form now
given to it by those who presumed to speak for the laboring
classes, like Bright and Baines, then the governing classes
of England would have no recourse but to resist. "Discon
tent, insurrection, civil war itself, will, in the long
run, produce no worse dangers than absolute and unrestrained
29
Pari. Deb.. CXXVII (1865), 1703-4.
30Ibid.. 1705.
3Quarterly, 122 (April, 1867), 562.
66
32
democracy.” The Quarterly did not think that matters
would be brought to such an extremity, however. It was
more likely the workers would ask for power proportionate
to their share of the nation's wealth, and if they did
recognize the differences made by property, then they might
fairly ask for representation.
Behind this view of the reform question there
appeared a fundamental attitude towards change that not
only guided many conservatives at the time, but character
ized Lord Salisbury’s philosophy when he guided England in
33
the years after democratic reform had been achieved.
Indeed, it was the constant theme of his contributions to
the Quarterly which he so powerfully influenced:
The perils of change are so great, the promise of
the most hopeful theories is so often deceptive,
that it is frequently the wiser part to uphold the
existing state of things, if it can be done, even
though, in point of argument, it should be utterly
indefensible.^
For this kind of mind, a strong hand in government
was the surest support for keeping things going and riding
out passing storms. It distrusted Disraeli and, reminding
men of Sir Robert Peel's "betrayal,” warned against en
trusting power to any leader who similarly seemed more
• ^Quarterly. 117 (April, 1865), 570.
33Ibid.. 199 (Jan., 1904), 300.
34Ibid., 117 (April, 1865), 550.
concerned with the opinion of his opponents than of his own
supporters. As for Lord Russell and his Whigs, their party
was ’ ’ morally indefensible.” Not only were the Liberals
badly divided, but underneath they were aspiring to gain
greater power for the lower house. Reform had become a
"chronic malady” with them. The English constitution could
not go on indefinitely throwing off their "doses of democ-
35
racy” just because it had done so after 1832. The
greatest danger, however, it seemed to the Quarterly, came
not from demagogues like Bright and Baines, but from the
apathy of those already within the constitutional pale.
England was "on the very turn of the tide," and propheti
cally it warned that the next step toward democracy would
36
be much more rapid than in the past or not at all.
Whig-Liberals sharply criticized Robert Lowe and
John Bright for pulling the party apart. Lowe went too
far, the Edinburgh said. He was right in rejecting any
"natural right" to vote. But if Parliament would follow
Lord Russell’s advice and modify the suffrage on "good old
English notions of representation” to let in the repre
sentatives of the best of the working class with "sound
37
morals and clear intelligence,” then all would be well.
3^Quarterly, 117 (April, 1865), 549.
36Ibid., p. 565.
3^Edinburgh, 122 (July, 1865), 260.
Not all workmen were drunkards and immoral as Lowe tried to
picture them. Many a worker who would qualify under a fc 8
or t 6 rating franchise now had become the intellectual and
moral equal of the "industrious ten-pounder" who had gained
the vote by the Reform Bill of 1832. The reason for this,
of course, was that under the aegis of the Liberal party,
England had become wealthy and prosperous with a diffusion
of education among the working classes. Therefore, it was
only sensible to recognize the general rise in well-being
and intelligence. There had been no dislocation of classes
after the first Reform Bill, though the Tories had cried
out then in their fear of democracy. Nor would there be
now when they were raising the same spectre. Lowe was
being extreme too when he compared the evils of democracy
in America and in Australia with the future of England if
she adopted democracy. To begin with, they were two dif
ferent social structures. England was still essentially a
feudal society where order and gradations were engrained,
where the wealthy and educated classes still preponder-
38
ated. It might be true as de Tocqueville said that
democracy was advancing everywhere, but in England it was
different. "Until the social organization of this country
is overthrown . . . until the traditions and habits of
• ^Edinburgh, 123 (Jan., 1866), 263-96.
69
39
every class and every family are materially changed/' an
extension of the franchise would not mean democracy. In
any event, workmen who got the vote would probably continue
to send the same kind of men to Parliament who were now
returned. As for Disraeli's "lateral" extension of the
franchise, the Edinburgh could only scoff at it, while Mill
and Hare's scheme of "plural" voting was unwise.
The Edinburgh's attitude toward reform, in short,
could be summed up by the phrase attributed to Louis
Phillipe, the bourgeois monarch of France: "Work, get rich,
and then you can vote." England, it felt, was at the very
pinnacle of well-being and power, largely because of Whig-
Liberal leadership. And, though social lines were drawn,
it was still possible for "every man who has the industry
. . . and the wit" to rise.4® It was time now to recognize
that many industrious workmen had done just that. More
over, it would be better to extend the franchise moderately
while the people were calm. This would surely have to be
done by the next Parliament.
The' voices of Liberals ranged out to the left of the
Whigs, not as far as unchecked democracy, but at least to
universal suffrage with restrictions. Few, if any, wanted
an unalloyed democracy. On the conservative edge of the
39
Edinburgh. 122 (July, 1865), 257-95.
4QIbid., p. 271.
70 |
Liberals was one of the most astute and penetrating repre
sentatives of High Victorian Liberalism, Walter Bagehot,
whose English Constitution first appeared in the Fort
nightly Review. While Parliament talked about democracy
and the Constitution, Bagehot, in a little masterpiece,
introduced Englishmen to a fresh, clear-sighted view of
politics. Races, he said, had developed at an unequal rate
over the ages. So had men. Even in mid-nineteenth century
England "the lower orders, the middle orders, almost every
one, are still, when tried by what is the standard of the
educated ’ten thousand,’ narrow-minded, unintelligent
/ 1
ignorant, incurious." In fact, some were no more civi
lized than men were two thousand years ago. Thus the best
form of government was a monarchy because:
the mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly
anywhere in the world understand any other. It is
commonly said that men are governed by their imagi
nations; but it would be much truer to say they
are governed by the weakness of their imaginations.
The nature of a constitution, the action of an
assembly, the play of parties, the unseen forma
tion of a guiding opinion, are complex facts, dif
ficult to know, and easy to mistake. But the
action of a single will, the fiat of a single mind,
are easy ideas; anybody can make them out, and no
one can ever forget them.
The monarchy, moreover, consecrates the state in a way that
democratic Americans and Radical Utilitarians can never
^Fortnightly. 1 (May 15, 1865), 7.
42Ibid.. 2 (Aug., 1865), 103.
' ' ' * ...
understand; it is above parties, it is aloof from the busi- :
ness of government; and it acts as a sedative on England*s
"most tiresome defect--our social ambition"— by filling the
highest office in the land. Constitutional royalty also
offered a great blessing to the mass of "heedless people"
by disguising the change of real rulers, a small elite,
that governed England. The masses, who do not understand
this, of course, are loyal to the queen who is the symbol
of this social order, and, by the saving grace of their
"deference" for their social superiors, the latter are
allowed to choose the real governing body, the cabinet.
Indeed:
the mass of uneducated men could not in England at
the present moment be told "go to, choose your
rulers"; they would go wild; their imaginations
would fancy unreal dangers, and the attempt at
election would end in a forcible usurpation of the
sovereign power. . . . The incalculable advantage
of august institutions in a free state is, that
they prevent this collapse.^
If the masses were once permitted to rule, deference and
the whole British constitution would come to an end because
"a people never hears censure of itself." Fortunately, the
working classes were still politically contented. Though
"if they knew how near they were to . . . [an elective
government] they would be surprised, and almost tremble."44
^Fortnightly. 1 (2nd issue, June, 1865), 316.
44Ibid.t 2 (Aug., 1865), 115.
72 ■
When they did get the vote, Bagehot, as will be seen, was
himself shocked and horrified.
The Fortnightly, as an organ of widely divergent
Liberal thought, offered a shower of ideas and programs.
One writer proposed universal suffrage with an ingenious
arrangement of seven yearly registrations as tests of
political interest.^ Another article by the well known
writer Thomas Hare proposed the creation of a "general
electoral college" for those intelligent few who, dissatis
fied with the constituency in which they happened to find
themselves, for a small fee could have their names put on
its register and thus be entitled to elect members other
than those pushed on them by a political organization or by
the majority in the constituency.^ Another writer pains
takingly refuted every one of Robert Lowe's arguments
pointing out that the word "democracy" was being used as an
emotional bogy; England was a democracy already and any
further movement in that direction was only an organic
development of the Constitution.^ At the center,
^5"a New Franchise," Fortnightly, 1 (July, 1865),
602-4.
46
"An Electoral Reform," Fortnightly, 2 (Sent.,
1865), 439-42.
47
"Democracy in England," Fortnightly, 1 (June.
1865), 228-38.
editorial policy rallied around Gladstone's statement--
characteristically hedged--made in a speech at Chester:
"What do I understand by Liberal principles? I understand
in the main this--by Liberal principles, the principle of
AO
Trust in the people, only relieved by Prudence."
The Parliament led by Palmerston for more than six
years dissolved in July of 1865. In the elections that
followed, there was little talk of reform. The old
Quarterly, however, roused and suspicious, issued a call
to save English civilization. Remembering Lowe's attack
and scenting that something might come of Bright's observa
tion that the new government would have to come forward
with something more positive than had "the dawdling system
of the last five years,the Quarterly appealed to the
electors to vote for Conservatives if they valued freedom
and order. The central issue of the time was freedom
versus democracy, government by property and intelligence
versus government by ignorance and poverty. There was no
middle ground; there could be no compromise with those who
wanted to give the vote to only the more educated workers,
no "yielding the government of the country to the Trades
^"Public Affairs," Fortnightly, 1 (July, 1865),
378.
^Trevelyan, Life of John Bright, p. 344.
Unions . . . to all alterations in . . . [the suffrage]
that can in any degree increase the democratic element in
the Constitution. Democracy, worst of all, posed a
threat to the very religious foundations of English society.
Thus all those who loved the Church must beware of these
Liberals and Radicals who threatened her with spoliation.
Gladstone, in particular, was singled out for his flirting
with Non-Conformists and pro-disestablishment of the Irish
Church. His democratic allies, whom he seemed increasingly
to rely on were in ’ ’deadly, irreconcilable hostility to the
Church." "To the electors of Great Britain this issue is
committed; and may God defend the right!
The tide was turning, however; Liberals gained a
majority and the Radicals increased. Gladstone, partly as
a result of conservative attack on his religious policy,
lost his seat for Oxford and came in for the South Lanca
shire working men. There were three other elections, too,
that gave signs of the future: Sir John Acton won office
for Bridgnorth, Tom Hughes for Lambeth, and, most import
ant, John Stuart Hill for Westminster. Though their future
political activities were not to be very successful, their
appearance was thought auspicious. The Fortnightly, in
50118 (July, 1865), 293.
51Ibid., p. 295.
75
fact, was particularly pleased and noted that now reform
52
was "likely to stir the nation to its depths."
Gladstone's position was made much clearer by the
election. He had received a bitter political blow in his
53
Oxford defeat, though at bottom it was a reflection of a
deep change that had been coming over him, one that his old
constituents perhaps saw more clearly than he did. During
the American Civil War the behavior of the Lancashire
cotton workers, who were sympathetic with the North despite
the fact that the North's blockade was causing them unem
ployment, had impressed him. Their actions had confirmed a
growing belief in this deeply moral man that the average
individual could be trusted to hear and interpret correctly
the voice of God. Thus by 1864 he had given evidence of
S S
his new political direction, as indicated already, in his
speech on Baines' bill to extend the franchise. And in
July of 1865, after his clerical opponents had defeated
him, he could exclaim with a sense of relief to his working
class listeners: "At last my friends I am come amongst you.
52"Publie Affairs," 1 (July, 1865), 761.
53
According to his recent biographer Philip Magnus,
it was the most bitter one he ever received. Gladstone,
p. 171.
^Ibid., p. xii.
-*-*See above, p. 38.
And I am come among you unmuzzled." He went on cautiously
to explain, however, that of course he had always been
against any sudden or violent change. Now "the true and
just balance of the powers of the constitution would be
. . . improved, by a fair, and liberal, and sensible,
though not a sweeping, nor an overwhelming, admission of
our brethren of the labouring community to the privilege of
the suffrage.
Tom Hughes, though he did not become as famous as
the other three, did illustrate the rise of democratic
interests. He had been a lawyer who joined the Christian
Socialists, had aided considerably in the furthering of the
cooperative movement, had been associated with the founding
of the Working Men's College, and, in short, had gained
fame as a social reformer. On the strength of this, he was
urged to run for office and in 1865 was elected M.P. for
Lambeth.
Sir John E. E. Dalberg, first Baron Acton of Alden-
ham, deeply distrusted democracy, perhaps more than most.
In 1862, in a review of Goldwin Smith's Irish History, he
had written that "social equality is . . . a postulate of
pure democracy" and "the Reign of Terror was nothing else
than a reign of those who conceive that liberty and
C £
Speech reprinted in Bullock and Shock, The Liberal
Tradition, p. 145.
equality can coexist."^ But interest in his election
focused on the fame he was then gaining in his struggle
with the Papacy and English Ultramontanes. In 1864, as
editor of the Catholic Home and Foreign Review his "Con
flicts with Rome" appeared, and in that same year the Pope
answered with the Syllabus of Errors which condemned
Acton's efforts to adjust Catholicism to progress, liberal-
CO
ism and recent civilization. In 1865 he was elected as a
Liberal member in what seemed a vindication of his modern
ism, but in the following year he was unseated on a scru
tiny. Acton's real influence was to come through his
immense scholarship and erudition, which was to reveal it
self later in his contributions to the Reviews.
John Stuart Mill, the "Apostle of Liberalism," whose
thought on politics and economics dominated the age, was at
the very height of his immense reputation in 1865. Early
in the year popular editions of his Political Economy, On
Liberty, and Representative Government were published. His
entry into politics was watched by all. Once in Parlia
ment, he was cited and challenged perhaps as many times as
-^John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, The History of
Freedom and Other Essays. J. N. Figgis and R. V. Laurence,
eds. (London, 1922), pp. 265-7.
CO
Acton, Essays on Freedom and Power, Gertrude
Himmelfarb, ed. (New York, 1955), pp. 11-12.
78 i
Gladstone, whom he supported and who introduced the reform
bill of 1866. Morley and the Fortnightly venerated him;
the Edinburgh and Quarterly quoted him and appealed to him
more frequently than to any other political thinker. His
was the seminal mind that Liberals and Conservatives alike
turned to when they discussed Democracy.
Mill's parliamentary performance, however, soon pro
voked conservative antipathies and puzzled Liberals with
his seeming Radicalism. Indeed, it was in Parliament and
in a series of articles in the Fortnightly (to be examined
later) that he provided the basis for an alliance between
workers and left-wing intellectuals that became the British
Socialist movement. During his three years in office he
supported John Bright as well as Gladstone, approved of
Thomas Hare's plan for protecting minorities (which the
leader of the Liberal party thought "invidious"), pleaded
for an extension of the vote to women, contributed to the
election expenses of working class candidates and of Brad-
laugh, the republican and free thinker. Old Liberals and
Conservatives became confused and angry. Thus there arose
the picture of Mill the enigma that is still being debated:
59
Was Mill a Liberal or a Democrat? The truth of the
matter, of course, is that he was both; he was no longer
59
See the articles in History Today, January and
April, 1958, pp. 38-46 and 283-4.
79
the "Apostle” but the Janus of Liberalism.
The turn of Mill's thinking from the older Liberalism
with its narrow Utilitarian base to the democracy of the
future, as we have seen in his review of de Tocqueville's
work, ^ probably occurred by the 1840's. Certainly by 1848
in his Principles of Political Economy he had summed up the
best of classical Liberalism and pointed to the problem of
the future with the "inevitable” rise of democracy:
The poor have come out of leading strings, and can
not any longer be governed or treated like child
ren. To their own qualities must now be commended
the care of their destiny. Modern nations will
have to learn the lesson, that the well-being of a
people must exist by means of the justice and self-
government . . . of the individual citizen. . . .
Whatever advice, exhortation, or guidance is held
out to the labouring classes, must henceforth be
tendered to them as equals, and accepted with their
eyes open. The prospect of the future depends on
the degree in which they can be made rational
beings.
Henceforth, his effort would be to advance working-class
representation and to guard against the weaknesses of
democracy. It was in that same work too that he provided a
link between the Utopian Socialists who preceded him and
the Fabians who followed. For he agreed with socialists
that the form industrial operations were tending to take
^See above, p. 55, ft.nt. 10.
61
"On the Probable Futurity of the Labouring
Classes," Bk. 4, Pt. II, 5th (1862) edit. (New York, 1868),
ill, 346-7.
80!
demanded change, that the relations of employer and em
ployee were marked by a "total absence of regard for
f i 9
justice or fairness." He agreed too, that if there was
no alternative between existing conditions and even Com
munism, then, as bad as the latter might be, there could be
no question but that it would be vastly preferable. There
were, however, alternatives. The best hope for the worker
lay in the cooperative movement. In it one could see:
exemplified the processes for bringing about a
change in society, which would combine the freedom
and independence of the individual, with the moral,
intellectual, and economic advantages of aggregate
production; and which . . . would realize, at least
in the industrial department, the best aspirations
of the democratic spirit, by putting an end to the
division of society into the industrious and idle,
and effacing all social distinctions.
Mill vehemently opposed the socialist attack on com
petition, however. "They forget that whatever competition
is not, monopoly is; and that monopoly in all its forms, is
the taxation of the industrious for the support of indo-
f i l l
lence, if not plunder." Later, in his Autobiography, he
summed up his position:
Our idea of ultimate improvement went far beyond
democracy, and would class us decidedly under the
^3"On the Probable Futurity of the Labouring
Classes," II, 350.
63Ibid., p. 377.
64Ibid., p. 378.
8i|
general designation of Socialists. . . . The
social problem of the future we considered to be,
how to unite the greatest individual liberty of
action, with a common ownership in the raw ma
terial of the globe, and an equal participation
of all in the benefits of combined labour. . . .
We saw clearly that to render any such social
transformation either possible or desirable an
equivalent change of character must take place
both in the uncultivated herd who now compose the
labouring masses and in the immense majority of
their employers.
How to unite liberty and some form of socialism, that was
the great problem.
Democrats could find support for their cause in all
this, though it is doubtful that Mill was ever really a
socialist, as he said. He was too much an individualist
and lover of freedom ever to be anything like that--at
least as we know Socialism today. Indeed, the picture of
Mill the enigma deepened with his On Liberty (1859) in
which his democratic ethos reached a new height but gave
substance to the worst Liberal fears of democracy. The
basis of arriving at truth and all human progress, he said,
was absolute freedom of opinion, freedom to publish one's
ideas, freedom to frame and plan one's own life so long as
it did not harm others. Coercion employed against these
liberties was illegitimate. No government had the right,
even one acting in accord with public opinion--indeed that
^"World's Classics Edition" (London: Oxford Press),
pp. 196-7.
Rousseauistic kind of "forcing men to be free" was worst of
all. The sole occasion for government interference with
the liberty of action of any member of society was in self
protection. This was the "one very simple principle . . .
entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with
66
the individual." Out of the free play of opinion, truth
was extracted; out of freedom to pursue one's own goals
came the growth of individual character. Democrats and
Liberals could applaud this.
Unfortunately, however, he said, in an existential
passage that seems directed at the mid-20th century:
in our times, from the highest class of society
down to the lowest, every one lives as under the
eye of a hostile and dreaded censorship . . . what
is customary. . . . Conformity is the first thing
thought of; they live in crowds; they exercise
choice only among things commonly done; peculiarity
of taste, eccentricity of conduct are shunned
equally with crimes; until by dint of not following
their own nature they have no nature to follow:
their human capacities are withered and starved:
they become incapable of any strong wishes or
native pleasures, and are generally without either
opinions or feelings of home growth, or properly
their own. . . . 67
This weight of public opinion threatened originality and
individualism from which came all true happiness and prog
ress. And democracy, which exhibited a particularly ser
vile attitude toward public opinion, seeing not the value
66
"Gateway edition" (Chicago: Regnery), pp. 11-12.
67
On Liberty, pp. 76-7.
83
of originality because of its passion for equality, tended
to level all to collective mediocrity.
No government by a democracy or a numerous aris
tocracy, either in its political acts or in the
opinions, qualities and tone of mind which it
fosters, ever did or could rise above mediocrity,
except in so far as the sovereign Many have let
themselves be guided (which in their best times
they have always done) by the counsels and in
fluence of a more highly gifted and instructed
One or F e w .68
Ideally, the best form of government that recognized
both limited equality for the Many and the excellence of
the Few at the same time was a representative democracy.
It measured highest in Mill's test of government: how well
it fostered desirable moral and intellectual qualities.
Sovereignty, he said in his Considerations on Repre
sentative Government (1861), should reside with the people.
They should also participate in some public function which
in itself would be an educative experience. But all could
not participate in the actual government--they were not all
qualified to do so. They should choose representatives who
would act as a kind of debating society representing every
shade of public opinion and acting as a check on the actual
government. This should be in the hands of the best
political figures of the country. The two greatest dangers
to this form of government, however, were a low intelli
gence in the representative body and in popular opinion and
^On Liberty, pp. 83-4.
84 |
class legislation on the part of the numerical majority.
Restriction of the franchise, as many thought at the time,
was not the answer. Electoral privilege should be open to
all of age who wanted it. But these must qualify intel
lectually by passing a simple test in reading, writing, and
arithmetic--possible for most in the not too distant future
when the State would aid education. They must qualify
economically by a direct tax (a simple form of capitation
tax preferably), and this would soon be possible for most
workers, too, since they already paid taxes indirectly.
Lastly, as a final check on giving power to ignorance, he
advocated plural voting to give weight to intelligence.
In summary of Mill’s appeal to both Liberals and
Democrats, then and now, it can be seen that for the former
he stressed representation based on intelligence and taxa
tion- -though he thought these simple requirements would
soon offer no real obstacle to those who wanted the vote.
He stressed freedom as one of the central ideals of his
society and the danger to it from a democracy that tended
to blur the distinctions between men. And, at bottom, I
think, he was most undemocratic in the 20th century egali
tarian sense because that has tended to stress the power of
majorities— for him "false” democracy--while he sought
representation of all classes, minorities as well as ma
jorities. Further, no matter how wide the suffrage, Mill
I imagine, would still have given weight to intelligence.
On the democratic side, he saw the development of
popular sovereignty as "inevitable,1 1 like de Tocqueville
and Marx. Therefore he urged recognition of it and an
advance to universal suffrage--votes for women on the same
basis as for men. I think, too, that somewhere very close
to the heart of his ideal, there was the belief that demo
cratic society offered the best chance for the maximum
growth of the individual's character. Perhaps therein lies
some explanation of his ambivalent attitude. In his "true"
democracy, distinct from "false” collective democracy, I
think he would have agreed with his friend Louis Blanc’s
ideal: "From each according to his ability, to each accord
ing to his needs." His democratic society would only be
truly democratic as long as it provided room for all to
grow--including even the eccentrics--and recognized that
all do not grow to equal heights. Only those of the
greatest moral and intellectual stature should actually
govern.
With the elections of 1865 concluded and Lord
Palmerston dead two months later, the country settled down
to a period of waiting. The old order was passing away;
new thoughts and new faces appeared. Opinion among the
governing classes of England was still predominantly--
though not completely--opposed to democracy, while beyond
them, opinion ranged out through two new democratic organ
izations that had been founded to appeal to the public
mind. In Manchester a middle class Reform Union called for
household suffrage (which John Bright wanted), and in
London a Reform League was set up to press for manhood suf
frage. The latter was headed by a middle class barrister,
Edmund Beales, but it included such leading working-class
figures as George Howell, Secretary of the Trades Union
Congress, and Robert Applegarth, Secretary of the Amalga
mated Society of Carpenters and Joiners. By the summer of
1865 the League was rousing London crowds to "a greater
pitch of enthusiasm for reform than there had been since
69
the 1840's." Thus reform was in the air and most thought
something would be done about it when the next government
assembled.
69
Briggs, Victorian People, p. 192.
CHAPTER IV
"THE TOURNEY OF THE CENTURY"
The advent of democracy as a governing power in
the world's affairs, universal and irresistible
. . . [is] at hand.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Whether England shall be governed by property and
intelligence, or by numbers . . . [that] is the
great controversy of modem society, the great
issue upon which the hopes of freedom, and order,
and civilization depend.
Quarterly Review
Lord Russell became Prime Minister on the death of
Lord Palmerston and asked Gladstone to lead in the House of
Commons. The House mistrusted the new Chancellor of the
Exchequer, particularly when he related problems to a high
moral issue or seemed to be looking down from some Sinaitic
height, but the masses of the politically awakening popu
lace were responding to him. And Lord Russell, who had
played so large a role in the 1832 Reform, now hoped to
round out his career. Public interest in the winter of
1865-66, however, was yet more concerned with matters like
the cattle plague and Fenianism than with the franchise.
Thus the Edinburgh, continuing in its Palmerstonian calm,
87
88 !
reflected on the failure of the previous reform bill and
said that Parliament had tried to push too far ahead of
public opinion, that the machinery of representation was
essentially sound, though it did want a bit of patching up
here and there.^ Not all basked in the warmth of such
satisfaction, of course. The Fortnightly thought that
relations between the workers and the rest of the' nation
had been badly neglected under Lord Palmerston, and, in
contrast to prevailing opinion, made a remarkable prophecy
a few weeks before Gladstone brought in his Reform Bill:
It would be sound policy on the part of a govern
ment which stakes its existence on a reform of
Parliament, to bring in a bold and comprehensive
measure, one of that kind which they could defend
at the hustings. But who could grow enthusiastic
over a h 6 rating franchise? Unless Ministers are
better advised and bring in a conclusive measure
. . . they will meet with defeat, a defeat they
will deserve. And then what will they see? The
Tories come in and carry a real reform. . . .
They may not desire reform, but they would like
the glory a successful legislative effort would
shed over their reputation.2
It seems doubtful that Gladstone could have got such a meas
ure passed, but the forecast was correct.
On March 12, Gladstone introduced his bill in a
tepid, business-like fashion to an unenthusiastic House.
The Fortnightly at once asked whether it was worth bringing
^"Extension of the Franchise," 123 (Jan., 1866),
263-96.
^"Public Affairs," 4 (Feb. 15, 1866), 115-16.
89
3
in at all. It was moderate like those of the preceding
fifteen years: in the boroughs it proposed to lower the
property qualification for householders paying a rental of
t 10 to t 7 clear annual value, to give the vote to lodgers
paying fc 10 annual rent, and in the counties it offered to
lower the qualification from t 50 to t 14 clear annual
value. Redistribution of seats was to be taken up later.
It was estimated that the electorate would be enlarged
about 400,000. The Edinburgh thought it was received with
"profound satisfaction by the best portion of the middle
4
classes of England"; and Conservatives might have gone
along with the bill. But Sir Robert Lowe attacked it with
such vehemence and set such an example of resistance that
not only the opposition but a wing of the Liberals--the
"Adullamites" as Bright called them--followed him in de
nouncing and defeating it.
"The greatest parliamentary tourney of the century""*
began when Lowe announced that any lowering of the fran
chise could only lead to the disaster of democracy.
Let any gentleman consider the constituencies he
has had the honour to be concerned with. If you
want venality, if you want ignorance, if you want
drunkenness and facility to be intimidated, or
3"Public Affairs," 4 (Mar. 15, 1866), 369-76.
^"The Reform Debate," 123 (April, 1866), 586-90.
^English Historical Documents, XII, 119.
90
if, on the other hand, you want impulsive, unre
flecting, and violent people, where do you look
for them in the constituencies? Do you go to the
top, or to the bottom?®
Gladstone's bill would scoop up these lower orders of
society. But that was only the beginning of the evil. If
the first stage of the consequences was to be "an increase
in corruption, intimidation, and disorder, of all the evils
that happen usually in elections," the second would be:
that the working men of England, finding themselves
in a full majority of the whole constituency, will
awake to a full sense of their power. They will
say, "We can do better for ourselves. Don't let us
any longer be cajoled at elections. Let us set up
shop for ourselves.
Once the present suffrage was extended, because of the
working class instinct for organization, nothing could stop
the rise of a Labour Party. Lines could not be drawn
between h 8, h 7, fc 6 and so on; Parliament would have to
go on until it came to universal suffrage, and few except
Radicals wanted that. 1
The House cheered these words with "frantic vio-
g
lence," though bitter feelings were roused among working
men in the country when John Bright advertised Lowe's
speech.
6Parl. Deb.. CLXXXII (Mar. 13, 1866), 147-8.
7Ibid., 149.
8Trevelyan, Life of John Bright, ft.nt., p. 352.
91
Then began a battle of giants. The leading com
batants never left the House, and every one knew
where to look for them. Nothing but the gangway
separated Bright and Lowe, the two champions who
represented the forces of democracy and aristoc
racy, now come to grips. They sat at the contigu
ous ends of the two second benches above the floor,
and Mill exactly behind and above Bright, in con
stant communication with him. On the other side of
the House, at the end of the front Opposition bench
below the gangway, sat Lord Robert Cecil, the soul
of the resistance on the Conservative side of the
House to working class enfranchisement, while
across the table Gladstone and Disraeli eyed each
other, the greatest pair of parliamentary rivals
since Fox and Pitt. If the time was great in its
issues, the men who had to deal with it were them
selves of no puny stature.°
John Bright followed Lowe, asking the house not to take
Sir Robert’s "Botany Bay view of the character of the great
bulk of his countrymen"^ (an allusion to Lowe’s continued
reference to Australia's anarchic democracy as the fate of
England if she gave power to the workers). He was for the
bill, though it was not what he would have liked to see.
Personally, he preferred household suffrage; moreover, the
government had shown "remarkable feebleness" in dealing
with the county franchise. (Lord Robert Cecil caustically
remarked that Parliament was witnessing a "lovers quarrel"
when John Bright could so chide Gladstone.) Still, said
Bright with a dark flourish, the bill should be passed or
the emigration of workmen would increase, possibly violence
^Trevelyan, Life of John Bright, p. 353.
1QParl. Deb.. CLXXXII (Mar. 13, 1866), 221.
occur. Would Englishmen try to "stop the working men of
this country exactly where the 4,000,000 negroes in the
United States are stopped?" They could not. And if the
Conservatives continued to resist the question of reform,
their difficulties would only be worsened. Outside, he
ominously reminded them, the nation was waiting. That was
the kind of remark, of course, that rived the souls of
moderates and conservatives; for they knew that was where
John Bright would bring pressure, and they disliked him
intensely for it.
Then Lord Robert Cecil arose. The opposition knew
where he stood; only a few weeks before he had bitterly
attacked Bright, Gladstone, and Mill in the January issue
of the Quarterly.^ Gladstone's principle of "trust in the
people" he had called "sentimental balderdash." And
Bright's democratic principles, if adopted by England,
would lead to increased emigration— but of the employers,
not the workmen. They would lead to governments violating
the fundamental principles of political economy with the
"right to work" plans of the trade unions; they would lead
to the breaking up of the great landed estates for re
distribution among the peasantry. The Conservative posi
tion must be: no quarter with democracy and no tampering
with any revision of the franchise that might lead to it.
■^"The Coming Session," 119 (Jan., 1866), 250-80.
Reform of the franchise was possible, but it must be
gradual and not upset the balance of the classes; it must
not give power to those whose only interest in the country
was their labor.
In his parliamentary attack on Gladstone’s bill,
Lord Robert Cecil's worst fears seemed to have material
ized. He had held that Gladstone and the reformers were
dominated by Bright and the Radical wing of the Liberal
party; and the bill confirmed it. It would give the work
ing classes a majority in the House. All talk about draw
ing economic lines between renters was so much quibbling
nonsense; there could be no stopping short of democracy.
Nor should Conservatives fear John Bright's threats of mob
violence. If mob pressures grew as great as in 1831-32,
then it was better to economize strength now:
Keep the Constitution in that condition that the
decision of the more educated and the calmer
classes can for the time, at any rate, make head
against the violent impulses of the populace, and
you will possibly be able to ride over even such
a tempest as that.12
In the debates that followed, Gladstone's own
character invited scathing attacks and seemed to rouse the
anti-democratic interests to higher pitches of resistance.1^
12Parl. Deb.. CIXXXII (Mar. 13, 1866), 236.
13
The Quarterly held that it was one of the prin
cipal reasons for the defeat of his bill. "The imperious
ness which is so irritating to an assembly of English
igentlemen has been ascribed by Mr. Gladstone* s devoted
| admirers in the press to a virtuous indignation and
94
One of the best examples of this occurred when Lord Elcho
joined with Cecil and others to ask for more figures so
that they might better judge the bill. The Chancellor of
the Exchequer objected to their whole mode of dealing with
humans as though they were mere statistics. His opponents
seemed as if ’ ’they were engaged in ascertaining the numbers
of an invading army; but the persons to whom their remarks
apply are our fellow subjects, our fellow Christians, our
1 /
own flesh and blood.” To which Cecil sarcastically
replied:
The depositaries of absolute power have often been
fellow Christians, and have generally been composed
of flesh and blood akin to that of those over whom
they ruled. The Emperor Paul, Robespierre, Ferdi
nand of Naples, were all baptised, and all of the
same race as their subjects: but those curcum-
stances did not make the absolute power which had
been lodged in their hands less of a calamity to
their fellow-men. - * - 5
In the same bitingly critical article, Lord Cecil
went on to make one of the most telling and damaging
charges against Gladstone’s bill: that it was really only
a part of John Bright’s blackmail, a buying off of the
a consciousness of superior purity, which will not suffer
him to treat with forbearance the meannesses or the follies
of his opponents. Perhaps, if the House fully realized
this superiority, it might take his rebukes more meekly and
kiss the rod that smites them.” 120 (July, 1866), 261.
14
Pari. Deb.. CLKXXII (1866), 873.
•^Quarterly, 119 (April, 1866), 542.
951
"insatiable ally." Even the Fortnightly which tried to
rally support for Gladstone*s bill suggested that Bright
might have more influence with the cabinet than with the
16
public which distrusted his "Americanizing" attempts.
Gladstone, in the second reading of his bill, said that the
Quarterly had lied. But the damaging charge had been made.
The Chancellor then went on to defend his bill on the
ground that repeated promises of reform had been given by
different governments, that the queen more than once had
requested that the problem be solved. In his view, as he
had said before, the working classes had become economi
cally, morally and intellectually better since 1832. They
were not all as Robert Lowe had described with his "pen of
17
steel, . . . ignorant, drunken, venal, violent." Thus
the more enlightened of the working classes should be ad
mitted to the franchise. Nor would they vote as a class as
Sir Robert and Lord Cecil seemed to fear. If more working
men were enfranchised, there would probably be as many
voting for the Conservatives as for the Liberals. Before
1832 there had been a larger democratic element in the
electorate than after. Sixty-five boroughs, he said, had
had working class constituencies (his bill would create
about sixty such boroughs), and there had been no class
16"Public Affairs," 4 (April 15, 1866), 623-34.
17Parl. Deb.. CLXXXII (April 12, 1866), 1147.
voting then. Why assume class war would break out now.
Gladstone was followed and supported by John Stuart
Mill, who gave one of the best and clearest arguments for
approving the bill. Conservatives, he said, in their alarm
lest the political balance be upset, contended that the old
constitution was concerned only with the representation of
classes, not individuals. It was not numbers that counted,
simply the representation of interests. Therefore, any
franchise that gave the workers a majority in constituen
cies was to be opposed. That argument, said Mill, was
turned on itself, for the working classes clearly were not
represented:
The class of lawyers, or the class of merchants, is
amply represented, though there are no constituen
cies in which lawyers or merchants form the ma
jority . . . but no constituency elects a working
man, or a man who looks at questions with working
men's eyes. Is there, I wonder, a single Member of
this House who thoroughly knows the working men's
view of trades union, or strikes, and could bring
it before the House in a manner satisfactory to
working men?-'-®
It was not a question of making them predominant, only a
matter of getting their opinions fairly represented before
Parliament. There they could be met with real arguments.
In general those who attempt to correct the errors
of the working classes do it as if they were talk
ing to babies. . . . Do not suppose that working
men would always be unconvincible by such arguments
18Parl. Deb., CLXXXII (April 13, 1866), 1259-60.
97 !
I
as ought to satisfy them. It is not one of the
faults of democracy to be obstinate in error. . . .
The educated artizans, those especially who take an
interest in politics, are the most teachable of all
our classes.
As for those who are always quoting de Tocqueville when he
said something uncomplimentary about democracy, they should
remember that if he was critical of that form of govern
ment, he was also its sincere friend. He had said that if
American legislators make many mistakes, they are Mperpetu
ally correcting them too." The same would occur if repre
sentatives of the working men were admitted to Parliament:
All the miseries of an old and crowded society
waiting to be dealt with— the curse of ignorance,
the curse of pauperism, the curse of disease, the
curse of a whole population bora and nurtured in
crime. All these things we are just beginning to
look at— just touching with the tips of our finger
tips. . . . I must needs think that we should get
on much faster with all this [correction of these
evils], the most important part of the business of
Government in our day, if those who are the chief
sufferers by the great chronic evils of our civili
zation had representatives among us.20
Of all the great public concerns, he exclaimed, the one
that would be furthered most quickly by the inclusion of
working class representatives would be public education.
"If there were no reason for extending the franchise to the
working classes except the stimulus it would give to this
one alone of the imperial works which the present state of
19Pari. Deb.. CLXXXII (April 13, 1866), 1260.
20Ibid.. 1263.
98
society urgently demands from Parliament, the reason would :
21
be more than sufficient."
Thomas Hughes, in a brief speech, agreed with Mill
in defense of Gladstone's bill. The only ones who could
speak for the working classes were those who had lived with
them and understood their problems. Certainly those with
large incomes and fine homes could not. One had only to
look at the Amalgamated Society of Engineers or the Amalga
mated Society of Carpenters and Joiners to see how self-
sacrificing, how disciplined and intelligent the best of
the workers had become. Fears of the "floodgates of democ
racy" being opened were groundless.
Disraeli disagreed. Not enough information had been
given to tell whether the workers would get fair repre
sentation. The point was that "this House should remain a
House of Commons, and not become a House of the People, the
House of a mere indiscriminate multitude."22 Furthermore,
evidence revealed that the bill was injurious to the landed
interests, and "I say the legitimate interest of the land
is the interest of England.''^3 Two of his thrusts in par
ticular discomfited the followers of Gladstone. Amid cries
of protest, he quoted Gladstone's opposition to reform back
21Parl. Deb.. CLXXXII (April 13, 1866), 1263.
22Ibid.. CLXXXIII (April 27, 1866), 103.
23Ibid.. 89.
99
in 1831 on the grounds that it would destroy the constitu
tion and foundations of the social order. Then he charged
that the real genius behind the bill was John Bright, who
intended to apply American democratic principles to
England. As for Mill, he was shocking everyone with his
radicalism.
The real issue, said Disraeli, was whether the con
stitution could be improved. That constitution was a
monarchy limited by the "so-called Estates of the Realm,"
and one of these was the House of Commons. According to
the original scheme of the Plantagenets, which still guided
him, "Commons consisted of the proprietors of the land
after the Barons, the Citizens and burgesses, and the
skilled artizans."24 These were the elements he wanted to
preserve, perhaps increase, but always with the idea of
retaining the original character. Gladstone's bill offered
only an "indiscriminate reduction of the franchise" that
would wreck the balance of this order. The old Edinburgh
2 S
scoffed at this "feudal order" of society.
It was Robert Lowe, however, not Disraeli, who made
the members of Parliament pause and, if they had any
qualms, turn against the bill. He was the one who really
24Parl. Deb.. CLXXXIII (April 27, 1866), 99.
2-*"Position and Prospects of Parties," 125 (Jan.,
1867), 269-301.
defeated it. None of the opponents escaped his cutting
tongue. Gladstone’s "flesh and blood" principle was so
much maudlin sentiment that justified admitting idiots,
criminals, anything. And what made Mill suddenly feel that
those he wanted to enfranchise had acquired the reading,
writing, arithmetic skills that he had held to be essential
before acquiring political power? As for Bright's trade
unions, once they had the political power, they would use
it just as testimony revealed they had been doing in their
murderous strikes: "to make war against all superiority, to
keep down skill, industry, and capacity, and make them the
9 fi
slaves of clumsiness, idleness, and ignorance." In a
ringing peroration, he concluded that the bill would bring
democracy to England, it would:
destroy one after another those institutions which
have secured for England an amount of happiness
and prosperity which no country has ever reached,
or is ever likely to attain. Surely the heroic
work of so many centuries, the matchless achieve
ments of so many wise heads and strong hands,
deserve a nobler consummation than to be sacri
ficed at the shrine of revolutionary passion or
the maudlin enthusiasm of humanity? But if we do
fall, we shall fall deservedly. Uncoerced by any
external force, not borne down by any internal
calamity, but in the full plethora of our wealth
and the surfeit of our too exuberant prosperity,
with our own rash and inconsiderate hands, we are
about to pluck down on our own heads the venerable
temple of our liberty and our glory. History may
tell of other acts as signally disastrous, but of
none more wanton, none more disgraceful.27
26Parl. Deb.. CLXXXII (April 26, 1866), 2102.
27Ibid., 2118.
So powerful was Lowe's voice in that spring of 1866
that Gladstone himself later on recommended him for the
viscountcy telling the queen that "he had soared to such
heights . . . he ought never to be lost 'in the common ruck
OO
of official barons."' Other opponents agreed too. He
had mercilessly dealt with all sham and error; he had
29
"arrested all careless legislation on Reform." He had
given the aristocracy a cause to fight for, the middle
class food for doubt, and the worker indignation that was
to help unify his ranks. For the first time, charged
Frederic Harrison in the Fortnightly, the theory of "pater
nal oligarchy" was stated. Lowe's ruthless honesty had
revealed that the House of Commons as it stood was not
representative of the people's will but of a "Benevolent
Autocracy."3® The old Edinburgh, of course, could only
lament that Lowe was tearing the Liberal party apart and
causing greater agitation for reform. The Quarterly
naturally hailed his patriotic mind, proudly holding him up
for comparison with Disraeli and Gladstone. With his
"rough nuggets" of golden thought, incurring ill will be
cause he would not flatter the populace, Lowe was like that
^^Magnus, Gladstone, p. 178.
^"Public Affairs," Fortnightly, 4 (May 1, 1866),
757.
^°"Our Venetian Constitution," 7 (Mar. 1, 1867), 264.
102 !
stern Roman consul Menenius Agrippa, who had induced
seceding plebeians to return by reminding them that the
social order cannot be broken without harm to the body
politic.
Robert Lowe's challenge, the most comprehensive,
sustained attack on democracy in the 19th century, was the
■3 1
’ ’swan song of mid-Victorianism," however. x He was to con
tinue in his hatred of democracy, opposing Disraeli's fran
chise bill of the following year; but he was not to succeed
again in thwarting the rising demand for an extension of
the franchise as he had with Gladstone's bill. Its final
defeat came in June.
During the debates on Gladstone's measure, the cur
rents of opinion on the matter of reform had steadily
quickened and broadened. Advocates of straight political
democracy were still scattered, though they were to become
more organized after the defeat of the bill. Meanwhile,
among the governing classes, the Fortnightly pressed
strongly for a downward extension of the vote. Walter
Bagehot, in his serial chapters on the English Constitu
tion, thought that much of the clamor for parliamentary
reform was really due to the unequal distribution of seats
that failed to recognize the continuing shift of power in
the country to the industrial north. What Bright and his
31
See Asa Briggs* study of Lowe in, Victorian People.
great capitalist friends really meant when they talked
about giving power to the workers was that "they cannot
endure— they ought not to endure that a rich, able manu
facturer should be a less man than a small, stupid
32
squire." He agreed with Mill's basic argument in favor
of reform, however. The true reason for admitting worker's
representatives to Parliament, he said, was to let them
give expression to the feelings, thought, and aims of that
class. If each section of the nation had its position ex
pressed and listened to, a larger view of the truth of the
nation's condition would be reached. Until then, no matter
what was said about the middle class or aristocracy being
able to care for artisan wants, the House of Commons would
remain defective. Bagehot did not agree though with two
prominent ideas associated with Mill, then circulating,
about reform of the House. The whole system of parlia
mentary government would be endangered by the ultra-
democratic theory of giving votes to everyone, including
women, and by the representation of minorities. Political
parties and their organization were the essence of the
House of Commons* life. Without the submergence of the in
dividual to the group, there would be "657 amendments to
every motion," there would be no choosing of leaders or
■^"The House of Commons," Fortnightly, 4 (Mar. 15,
1866), 276.
104!
disposing of them, and no government. This whole machinery1
operated in a kind of "twilight zone" where nothing was
very clear, where there was a kind of "intellectual haze"
in which the rigidity was taken out of argument and nothing
pushed to a logical extreme. Universal suffrage would
destroy this because moderation would be lost. On the one
hand, it would return a "clownish mass" of representatives
of the squirearchy, and on the other, either demagogues or,
at best, true representatives of the urban worker. Neither
group, being spokesmen of classes with strong biases, would
be intelligible to the other. As for the representation of
minorities, it would be accompanied by the growth of party
machinery and the loss of independence of the individual
member. And both Lord Russell and John Bright agreed with
him. The former was distinctly wary of any such scheme
while the latter thought the principle "childish."
In spite of this criticism, Thomas Hare continued in
the same Review to defend his well-known plan of represent
ing minorities, ^ holding that the "one essential condition
of true Parliamentary reform" was to provide for complete
freedom and independence of individual thought and action.
Only thus would men have a sense of individual choice and
33
See above, p. 72. The plan was considered in the
House of Commons in 1867, but rejected. See Low and
Sanders, p. 206.
105
responsibility; only then would "the full moral and intel-
o /
lectual development of individual character" be attained.
There were other programs for reform in the Fortnightly,
most varying on the same Millite democratic theme: how to
promote "true" democracy; how to avoid mere "nose counting"
democracy. One suggested that reform seek to establish
equal representation of the four main social classes: men
living on property; professional classes who lived by their
brains; traders, merchants, manufacturers; wage earners.
Each class had a peculiar homogeneity. The first and third
were instinctively conservative; the second and fourth were
always struggling against the classes with the power. In
fairness, the workers ought to have the power to nominate
35
one-fourth of the members of the House of Commons.
Another reformer proposed throwing out the existing electo
ral system and substituting a system of representation
based on class and interest. In a manner similar to latter
day Fascists, this author listed nineteen basic economic
interest groups. Each was to have twenty-five representa
tives. For those who still preferred to vote according to
^"The Keystone of Parliamentary Reform," 3 (Jan. 15,!
1866), 559; and "Representative Government," 4 (Mar. 15,
1866), 350-8.
^"Just Demand of the Working Man," 4 (April 15,
1866), 560-8.
106
geographic interest, there were to be one hundred and
eighty more representatives of counties and towns. Thus a
"pure” democracy might be attained, not a ’ ’government by
crowd.
Less enthusiastic reformers like the Edinburgh con
tinued to hope for an ’’empirical," step by step gathering
of electoral facts, then debating and cautiously improving
the representative machine. If there were dangerous
classes in the community, it was even more dangerous to
exclude some of the workers who, incidentally, would not
37
all gravitate to the democratic side.
Even the old Quarterly began to offer proposals for
reform by the summer of 1866. The Review was still not
sure that this was necessary in the light of Gladstone's
defeat; but if the workers were willing to participate
without predominance, then something might be done. Like
Bagehot, the Quarterly agreed that redistribution was
necessary; too much power was still in the southwest, not
enough in the industrial towns of the north. Disraeli's
"lateral" extension of the franchise might be advantageous;
even a "vertical" extension was possible, though it would
|depend "on the tone in which it is claimed by those who are
i
i
i
I ■
•^’ ’Principles of Representation," 4 (April 1, 1866),
421-36.
*^”The Reform Debate," 123 (April, 1866), 587.
107
oo
to benefit by it. Nothing should be done as a conces
sion to men like John Bright and their threatening mobs.
Questions of an organic change could not be carried on
"under the shadow of revolution and the possibility of an
appeal to physical force." Decisions taken in the next two
or three years would determine in all probability the
future character of the constitution. "Our system may
fairly be said to be on its trial."39 It will have either
freedom or the despotism of democracy.
Public interest in reform had trailed behind that of
the governing classes during the debates of the spring, but
by July the great towns were "keen on reform." Lowe's
picture of the working man had roused considerable resent-
40
ment among the London working classes. Then defeat of
Gladstone’s reform bill followed by the resignation of Lord
Russell's government on June 25 and the accession of Lord
Derby to office added resentment to grievance. Neither
33"The Change of Ministry," 120 (July, 1866), 277.
39Ibid.. p. 282.
40
Punch had cheerfully offered cartoon views of the
worker as portrayed in Parliament: Lowe's working man was
a sot seated at a table with his tankard, red nose, and
trinkets at his feet; Horsman's worker was a French revolu
tionary cutting off the symbol of the crown that supported
him; Forster's laborer studied intently by candle light;
and Bright's was an aesthetic Pre-Raphaelite with wings,
daintily sipping water from a fountain. (1865), 203.
108 I
t
i
Lowe nor his Adullamite supporters were in the new govern
ment, but two of the principal figures in the defeat of the
reform bill were included: Disraeli succeeded Gladstone as
Chancellor of the Exchequer and Lord Robert Cecil, now Lord
Cranbome, came in as Secretary for India. This further
aroused the animosity of the working classes. On June 27
crowds marched through London to Gladstone's house chanting
"Gladstone and Liberty.On July 23, Edmund Beales,
president of the Reform League, led an orderly procession
to Hyde Park, which had been closed to them, to demand man
hood suffrage.^ After protesting, the group went on to
Trafalgar Square, but a mob stayed behind and pulled down
the fence that kept them from the fashionable enclosure.
There was little real damage or violence, "but all were
agreed that a new and ugly temper was at work in the
/ O
people." Further, as a consequence of the defeat of
Gladstone's reform bill, the League joined forces with the
middle-class Reform Union of Manchester, and these two--
despite their differences on the suffrage— were to continue
their activities of rousing a demand for reform throughout
the autumn of 1866 to the spring of 1867.
Probably of greater importance to the rising reform
/ 1
Magnus, Gladstone, p. 182.
^See above, p. 86.
43Trevelyan, Life of John Bright, p. 361.
109
I movement than the activities of these organs was the cam-
jpaign of John Bright in the fall and winter of 1866. Few
Imen had more influence over the workers, save possibly
i
Gladstone. The greatest democrat of his age, who was to
become the first working class nominee to enter the British
Cabinet (Gladstone*s in 1868),44 began his career opposed
to democracy, just as Gladstone had; both, however, had
come to see the need for a democratic extension of the suf
frage, and both had the moral fire to make other men see
the "righteousness" in such reform. Gladstone and Russell
were wary of him and disliked the way he roused popular
passions, but they respected him and were influenced by
him. Curiously, too, Bright was sometimes "strangely inti-
45
mate" with Disraeli. To the rest of high society, of
course, his name was anathema. Following the Hyde Park
affair, he called a series of monster demonstrations to
demand reform. He was going to the nation, just as he had
warned the Conservatives, and it would listen. As many as
150-200,000 people, it was estimated, gathered on the moors
outside a town to hear John Bright.4* * At Birmingham, Glas
gow, Manchester, and finally London the throngs listened
as Bright challenged Parliament*s handling of the reform
44Trevelyan, Life of John Bright, p. 402.
45Ibid.. p. 370.
46Ibid., p. 362.
110
j
issue. At the Glasgow demonstration on October 16, 1866,
47
jhe made the "most important speech" of his career summing
iup his political creed. The vote must be given to the
[
poor, he said, so that the State could render them justice.
At present, class prejudice weighed upon the House of Com
mons and it was impossible for it to do justice to those
48
beneath them. If the vote were given to the workers:
probably what I call the Botany Bay view [Lowe's]
of their countrymen would be got rid of, and we
should have a sense of greater justice and gener
osity in the feeling with which they regard the
bulk of the nation. And if there was more knowl
edge of the people, there would assuredly be more
sympathy with them; and I believe the legislation
of the House, being more in accordance with the
public sentiment, would be wiser and better in
every respect. The nation would be changed.
There would be amongst us a greater growth of
everything that is good. . . . The class which
has hitherto ruled in this country has failed
miserably. It revels in power and wealth, whilst
at its feet, a terrible peril for its future, lies
the multitude which it has neglected. If a class
has failed, let us try the nation.4-9
^Trevelyan, Life of John Bright, p. 368.
AO
^ An analysis of Parliament's class structure had
been made by Chamber* s Journal (Nov. 25, 1865) and repeated
|in the Fortnightly. 4 (April 1. 1866), 428-9. The main
iportions read as follows: "125 peers and members of the
peerage, 67 baronets, 105 regular military officers, 108
militia, yeomanry, volunteer officers, 11 naval officers,
100 lawyers, 49 merchants, 18 manufacturers, the remainder I
a scattering of professional and middle class. The aris
tocracy, military, and lawyers were thus the best repre
sented." This, of course, had supported Mill and Frederick
Harrison's contention, as well as Bright's, that the worker
simply was not represented.
49
Bright, Speeches, pp. 383-4.
On December 4, 1866, Bright’s campaign reached its
climax with a speech to members of the trade unions
assembled at St. James Hall in London. Let the workers
unite, he told them, to use their unions for political as
well as economic power, and within one year they would get
the vote. To the conservative and middle class liberal, it
sounded like revolutionists at the barricades.
The Edinburgh, which had been silent on the issue of
reform after the failure of Gladstone’s bill, even when
Beales' Reform League had occasioned the Hyde Park dis
turbances, now denounced "the statesman in the House [who]
sinks into the demagogue without" where his ideas and
approach "savour of communism."^® It approved of his sym
pathy with the poor and his ability to arouse public inter
est in reform, but in his fall campaign speaking to "un
authorized assemblages," his attempt to gain a show of
force against the House was like the Paris Commune’s
attempt against the Convention of 1793. John Bright was a
grave danger to any moderate reform; he was worse than
I Robert Lowe, whose intemperate fears had given impulse to
i
I
the agitation.
i
The Quarterly charged Beales and his Reform League j
with confounding issues and vexing the whole problem of
■^"Position and Prospects of Parties," 125 (Jan.,
1867), 280.
I reform. He had helped make it a question whether England
|
was going to exchange her ancient monarchical form of
51
government for a "miserable copy of democratic America."
i
The chief objection to his manhood suffrage was "less that
it favors democracy, than that, in old and luxurious com
munities, it favours the Caesarism which ends in absolute
52
rule." Universal suffrage was being used even then to
j that end in France under Louis Napoleon and in Germany by
;Bismarck. And witness the presence of Louis Blanc come to
;stay in England as proof of this. Now that he has had to
flee his own country as a result of that very democracy he
I admires, like so many Frenchmen before him, he can remark
j
on the blessings of liberty in England despite its limited
suffrage. Like Bagehot and the Edinburgh, the Quarterly
held that "the genius of aristocracy has become interwoven
53
with the English character," spreading among the people
the perception of aristocracy as a thing apart from the
titles of a noblesse. This was what Frenchmen observed
too. And it was this characteristic:
this desire of the individual rather to raise him
self to the height of others more favoured by
-^"England and Her Institutions,1 1 120 (Oct., 1866),
552.
33Loc. cit.
53Ibid., p. 559.
113
i
| fortune or culture than to drag them down to his
level— which separates our English system of free-
| dom from the levelling attributes of democracy.54
i
All this was now endangered by the "mud volcano,"
John Bright, who wanted to Americanize England. The man
whose oratorical skill resembled "the rush of a rhino
ceros," was calling men to arms in a class war. The acces
sion of Lord Derby to power had been Bright's "signal for a
direct declaration of war to the knife." He and his
| Radical friends would attempt a revolutionary use of force
if they did not get the suffrage they wanted from the new
! government. If they got it, the Trades Unions would take
i over and the atrocious despotism revealed in the Sheffield
!
violence would be transferred to the nation at large.
Their government would be nothing but Irish Fenianism on
a national scale. Worse, England would become like
America, where corruption and "unblushing rascality" flour
ished as The Times and The North American Review had re
ported. "Imagine," the Quarterly asked:
one-eighth of the population of Liverpool or Bir
mingham, or a metropolitan borough (and why should
we not imagine them acting as the Americans, not
less intelligent, act under similar circumstances?)
organized in clubs, parading the public streets by
torchlight, or carrying sidearms or revolvers by
day, taking bribes as long as they can get them.
...
• ^Quarterly. 120 (Oct., 1866), 559.
•^"English Democracy and Irish Fenianism," 122
(Jan., 1867), 251.
114
1
This was John Bright's model for Englishmen.
I The Fortnightly, having hitherto taken a dim view of
|Bright, now began to reveal its latent radicalism, however.
Bright's Birmingham demonstration, it thought, had been a
great success. The cause of reform had been promoted by
;that speech when he had shown in clear, simple, convincing
words that Lowe had libeled the worker and that Lord Derby
had taken this as the basis of his exclusion of the working
class from the franchise. The laboring class had only to
go to Australia, the United States, or even Germany now and
they could get the vote denied them in England. Bright
clearly performed a useful function for the country: "he is
the continual test of the soundness of our institutions."
Unfortunately, he still looks on the United States
as "the perfect state" seeing in all its turmoil a noble
use of energy. He was still in error there. What would
his "friend and coadjutor, Mr. Mill," think of this? In
his Principles of Political Economy, the latter had shown
no love for that crowding, pushing society where "the life
of the whole of one sex is devoted to dollar-hunting and of
the other to breeding dollar-hunters."^ This, the Fort
nightly thought, was the view of every intelligent English- j
man who had visited the United States. Mill himself, in I
- - - — . . . . . . ■ - ■ i
56"Public Affairs," 6 (Oct. 1, 1866), 493.
" ^Ibid., pp. 493-4.
the same passage that criticized American materialism, had
gone on to describe the ideal society:
The best state of human nature is that in which,
while no one is poor, no one desires to be richer,
nor has any reason to fear being thrust back by
the efforts of others to push themselves for
ward.
No, the good life could never be attained by patterning
English life on American institutions as John Bright
wanted.
The year 1866 thus closed on a note of tension; it
had been a critical year. Both Bright and Lowe had im
parted a sense of urgency to the times and made Englishmen
:re-evaluate their whole political life. Opinion on what
that ought to be had veered between the democratic and
aristocratic poles of the two orators' views. Men had
taken sides according to their emotions and according to
what they thought would happen in the event of reform; for
none knew what a reform bill would actually do. In the
charged and heated atmosphere of the winter of 1866-7,
since the moderate program of the Liberals had failed, it
remained to be seen whether the new minority government of
!
the Conservatives, puffed on by rising gusts of opinion,
could safely steer between the Charybdis of Democracy and
the Scyllan rock of the status quo to some kind of success
ful reform.
■^"Public Affairs," 6 (Oct. 1, 1866), 493-4.
CHAPTER V
LEAPING NIAGARA
We must not fall into a democracy, which is the
tyranny of one class, and that one the least en
lightened.
Benjamin Disraeli
No one seems to be agreed as to the results of the
tremendous revolution we are making. We are making
it absolutely in the dark.
Lord Cranborne (Salisbury)
The leaders of the minority party came to a radi
cally new position by January of 1867, one that would "dish
ithe Whigs" but lead inevitably to that very democracy they
said they were trying to avoid. Neither Lord Derby nor
Disraeli could foresee the end results of their new plan
which was to change the balance of power in the House of
Commons--it seems unlikely that anyone else did either--but
with the magic phrase "household suffrage" they keenly
jsensed that they would convert a minority into a majority,
i
"bowl Gladstone over," and ride the tide of public opinion
to restore the Conservative party's position. In fairness j
to them, however, it should be noted that they, better than j
1
Gladstone and the Liberal leaders, detected what the nation j
117
!
wanted and met that desire, even if they followed a devious
path.
!
The beginning of Lord Derby's ministry was anything
but auspicious. The party was in a minority of seventy in
the House, and he could only assemble a cabinet with con
siderable difficulty. Lowe and the Adullamites, who had
wrecked Gladstone's moderate franchise proposals, would not
join except on impossible conditions. Lord Cranbome, who
had been the soul of Conservative opposition to an exten
sion of the franchise, agreed to come in as Secretary for
India; but he had written: "My connection with the Con-
servative party has been purely one of principle— for, as
you know, I have no feelings of attachment to either of the
leaders."^ In short, the position of Lord Derby's govern
ment seemed only a temporary one.
On July 9, 1866, however, he made a "ministerial
statement" to the House that signified a considerable
change from his earlier position when he had been primarily
interested in resisting the rising tide of democracy:
"Nothing, certainly, would give me greater pleasure than to
i
see a very considerable portion of the class now excluded
admitted to the franchise."2 Here was a straw in the wind, ;
i
*” Wilbur D. Jones, Lord Derby and Victorian Conserva-
tism (Oxford, 1956), p. 295.
2Pari. Deb., CUCXXIV, 740.
118
though it was still not clear what it meant in terms of
legislation. When Disraeli suggested in privacy two weeks
later that Gladstone’s bill in a modified form be taken up
and pushed through Parliament, the proposal was rejected
and Disraeli thereupon dropped the question of reform. It
was not until the middle of September, according to Lord
Derby's most recent biographer, that he gave any real
evidence of actually desiring to legislate on reform.^
Throughout the fall and winter of 1866 then, it was he, not
Disraeli, who carried forward the reform movement in the
Conservative government. The latter, in fact, sought to
postpone legislation as long as possible "in order to
secure a moderate measure":
Always an opportunist on Reform, he held during
this autumn that the composition of the Ministry
and the temper of the nation necessitated a policy
of moderation and delay. He was, indeed, for the
time, on the question not of principle, but of
tactics, nearer in opinion to his colleague Cran-
borne than to his leader Derby.
The Hyde Park riots, continued public meetings on the sub
ject of reform, and the seemingly immense success of John
Bright's campaign, however, dispelled any notion that
3
W. F. Moneypenny and G. E. Buckle, The Life of
Beniamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (New York, 1916),
IV, 452-3.
^Jones, Lord Derby, ft.note, p. 291.
^Moneypenny and Buckle, IV, 463.
119
i public apathy supported a policy of delay. That and the
fact that the queen, who played a not unimportant role,
;urged Lord Derby in a series of letters to try to solve the
reform question as soon as possible. In a letter of
October 28, she offered to help by making a personal appeal
to Lord Russell and Mr. Gladstone to arrive at terms of
agreement with Lord Derby’s government. Disraeli advised
against utilizing her aid though, and the government
accepted his view.
Then, even as the storm of John Bright's campaign
reached its height, by December of 1866, the idea that was
to change the whole course of the Conservative party took
hold of Lord Derby: Conservative Democracy.^ How this
occurred is not clear. Suffice it to note that from it he
arrived at the magic phrase of "household suffrage," and
from it, as the Quarterly lamented, came "the clear con
viction of the mass of the Conservative party, that in a
Reform Bill more Radical than that of the Whigs they had
Q
discovered the secret of a sure and signal triumph." The
iidea, in fact, was formulated by the Quarterly Review,
though not until after it had lost its battle against the
Moneypenny and Buckle, IV, 457-8.
^Jones, Lord Derby, p. 300.
Q
The Past and the Future of Conservative Policy,"
CXXVII (Oct., 1869), 542.
franchise extension and had had time to reflect on why the j
ranks of the party had deserted from its leadership to that j
of Benjamin Disraeli:
The phantom of a Conservative democracy was a
reality to many men of undoubted independence and
vigour of mind. A vague idea that the poorer men j
are the more easily they are influenced by the
rich; a notion that those whose vocation it was to
bargain and battle with the middle class must on
that account love the gentry; an impression— for
it could be no more— that the ruder class of minds
would be more sensitive to traditional emotion;
and an indistinct application to English politics
of Napoleon's (then) supposed success in taming
revolution by universal suffrage.9
Despite the Review's hostility to the idea, it acknowledged
that the idea was "thoroughly believed in and sincerely
acted on." The Quarterly rightly observed, however, that
the triumph of "Conservative Democracy" in 1867 was really
the logical culmination of a policy pursued for twenty
years earlier. It was to be "traced in germ in the teach
ing of the now forgotten Young England School" of which
Disraeli had been a leading spokesman. By admitting this,
of course, it tacitly recognized what it denied elsewhere,
that Disraeli had been educating his party and that he did
speak for Conservatives, if not all Tories. It should be
noted here, too, that the Quarterly's dissenting judgement
on this idea of the essential conservatism of the masses
was to be partly refuted by the course of future politics.
Q
"The Past and the Future of Conservative Policy,"
CXXVII (Oct., 1869), 541-2.
121
Though the working classes gave their allegiance to Glad
stone in 1868, in the over-all picture of the remainder of j
the century a considerable number, perhaps as many as one- |
third, of the workers continued to give their votes to the j
Conservative candidates. Moreover, the Quarterly misunder-'
stood or failed to grasp the nature of Disraeli*s appeal to;
the masses and by its suggestion of Napoleonic Caesarian
democracy misrepresented, gave an ugly cast to his vision.
The Edinburgh, too, quite blurred over the keenness of
Disraeli's political instincts. Neither Review could ever
really understand how the Sphinx-like opportunist Disraeli
could claim to have principles; and they continued to
oppose him, thinking it little short of a calamity that his
ideals should come to fruition.
It is necessary, therefore, to recall Disraeli's •
Conservative Democracy offered long before in the novels
Congingsby (1844) and Sybil (1845), not only because it
appeared in the debates of the time, but because it is
helpful in understanding the older Reviews with their Tory
and Whig interests. Moreover, it will shed light on the
curious— so it often seemed to some— relations that
Disraeli had with the Radicals, and why they with the Fort
nightly often found themselves in the enemy camp. Lastly,
and this is very important, Disraeli's idea of Conservative
Democracy recognized and stressed the coming basic import
ance of public opinion in modem politics--to the shock of
many at the time, for such acceptance of the role of popu- j
I
lar opinion conflicted with the prevailing theory of the !
independent politician. Even Sir Robert Peel seems not to j
have grasped clearly the significance of his Tamworth Mani-|
festo (1834) in which a Prime Minister declared his prin- j
ciples publicly to his constituents before taking office.
(
The Young Englanders, for whom the hero of Coningsby!
spoke, charged that the Whigs had caused England to be
ruled by a Venetian Constitution ever since the Hanoverians
had ascended the throne. That is, the king was really a
doge with a Council of Ten for a Cabinet and a Great Coun
cil of Nobles for a Parliament. An aristocratic oligarchy
with their royal prisoner had then not only reduced the
royal power, they had fostered disbelief by placing the
Church in an inferior position, they had disregarded the
masses of people who were left with little or no control
over public affairs. When the Tories came to power during
the Revolutionary-Napoleonic period, they had only con
tinued the unprincipled system; and in order to oust them
the Whigs had appealed to democracy. The principle behind
their Reform Bill of 1832 had been universal suffrage, but
because they could not stomach democracy they had illogi-
cally stopped short at the t 10 suffrage. Thus the only
rational position in politics in the 1840*s and after
was the Radical one--or the new Tory party of the Young
Englanders.
123
Their creed might briefly be summarized thus: a
belief in the power and beauty of Youth, opposition to the |
Whigs, and a restoration of the monarch's power because
only the throne was above all classes.
Monarchy is indeed a government which requires a j
high degree of civilisation for its full develop- !
ment. It needs the support of free laws and
manners, and of a widely diffused intelligence.
Political compromises are not to be tolerated
except at periods of rude transition. An educated
nation recoils from the imperfect vicariate of
what is called a representative government. Your
House of Commons, that has absorbed all other
powers in the state, will in all probability fall
more rapidly than it rose. Public opinion has a
more direct, a more comprehensive, a more effi
cient organ for its utterance, than a body of men
sectionally chosen. The printing press is a
political element unknown to classic or feudal
times. It absorbs in a great degree the duties of
the sovereign, the priest, the parliament; it con
trols, it educates, it discusses. That public
opinion when it acts would appear in the form of
one who has no class interests. In an enlightened
age the monarch on the throne, free from the vul
gar prejudices and the corrupt interests of the
subject, becomes again divine!^
It was not that parliamentary representation should be ig
nored or cast out— indeed, political change was "the
greatest of evils"--only that it should be recognized as
being in a process of desuetude for it really represented
only the few. A new principle of government was on hand:
"Opinion now is supreme, and opinion speaks in print."
"Let us propose to our consideration," said young Coningsby
^Benjamin Disraeli, Coningsby. Everyman ed.
(London, 1948), p. 251.
124
|to his friend Millbank, who represented the urban manu
facturing interests:
the idea of a free monarchy, established on funda
mental laws, itself the apex of a vast pile of
municipal and local government, ruling an educated
people, represented by a free and intellectual
press. Before such a royal authority, supported
by such a national opinion, the sectional anoma
lies of our country would disappear.11
Division and disunity would fade; the Church be restored;
and men led back "to adore and to obey."
In sum Disraeli's Conservative Democracy offered the
vision--it was scarcely more than that— of an exalted
monarch, supported by paternalistic "privileged classes who
are invested with those privileges for the advantage of the
community." These offered social justice for the masses in
return for their political support, though a mere Utili
tarian "knife and fork" approach to the question was not
enough. "You must cultivate the heart as well as seek to
content the belly; and . . . the surest means to elevate
the character of the people is to appeal to their affec-
12
tions." Lastly, a free press as an organ of public
opinion was the true voice of the Third Estate.
Something of this Disraeli must have imparted to
Lord Derby over the long years of their association.
Clearly, though, the idea of Conservative Democracy as
1: LConingsby, p. 295.
12Ibid., pp. 365-6.
125
;a basis for reform was repugnant to many of the older Con
servatives for whom the Quarterly spoke. The Review held
that this Disraelian policy of appealing for the support of
the poorer classes had, in the long view, the unwanted
effect of driving the natural allies of the Conservatives,
the Whigs, into closer union with the Liberals despite the
fact that there were deep differences between them. In
short, the Radicals were the only ones to gain really, and
that by using the Conservatives to pick their chestnuts out
of the fires of Reform.
The Whiggish Edinburgh, like the Quarterly, held
that Disraeli’s philosophy expressed in Coningsby lay be
hind all his political efforts. Naturally it condemned his
vision of paternal democracy, holding that it was nothing
less than a step backward to a medieval political order.
The interests of a whole class of people were endangered by
it. His view of the House of Commons as the representa
tives of a privileged order was no better than the equally
false notion of John Bright that the House was a House of
the People.
That was the very point, said Frederic Harrison in
the Fortnightly. The House of Commons was in fact, as
•^’ ’Position and Prospects of Parties,” 125 (Jan.,
1867), 269-301.
Robert Lowe had revealed, only representative of a Bene
volent Autocracy. The House was:
false to its origin and to its end, obstructive of
progress, and indifferent to its office, not a
real representation; but the mask only and symbol
of it; not a House of Commons, but a House of In
terests; not a national Parliament, but the Great
Council in our Venetian Constitution.^
There could be few better reasons for reform than recog
nition of this; the House must be made to represent the
people.
If the idea of Conservative Democracy offered an in
tellectual framework for reform, a goal for Disraeli and
his followers that would lead to the legislation of the
1870's, it was not the immediate basis of the Act of 1867.
"Of all possible hares to start, I do not know a better
than the extension to household suffrage, coupled with
plurality of voting." Such was the "light-hearted" note of
Lord Derby's to Disraeli that became the basis of the
Reform Bill.^ Both men had come to realize that once the
level of the £ 10 voting qualification was left, there
could be no stopping short of household suffrage. By Janu
ary of 1867 Disraeli had become converted to it along with
Derby, and the matter was taken up in a cabinet meeting at
the end of the month. Its radicalness at once alarmed
^"Our Venetian Constitution," 7 (Mar. 1, 1867),
274.
•^Moneypenny and Buckle, IV, 484.
Lord Cranborne, but Disraeli was able to pacify him tempo
rarily with the assurance that household suffrage would be
hedged by securities against any plunge toward democracy.
The queen opened Parliament’s second-session of the
fifth of February and again appealed for a solution of the
Reform question ’ ’without unduly disturbing the Balance of
political Power." On the eleventh Disraeli offered a group
of Resolutions to the House of Commons. Since the cabinet
was clearly not in solid agreement on household suffrage,
and since Disraeli himself had rejected the principle back
in 1859 on behalf of Lord Derby’s government, he had thus
to proceed by a cautious, tentative method. The seed of
reform, he said, lay in the 1832 bill which had taken the
vote away from many of the working class. That injustice
must be rectified. Unfortunately, the various ministries
that had attempted to solve the problem had failed; in
light of what the queen had said, it "should no longer be
a question which should decide the fate of Ministries"; it
was up to the House since it was chiefly responsible for
raising the issue and preventing its resolution. There
fore, before Lord Derby’s government brought in a bill, it
wanted the opinion of the House. The basic consideration
was how to reconstruct the House on the principles of the
constitution.
Her Majesty’s Government can counsel and counten
ance no course that will change . . . the varied
character of the House of Commons. . . . We do
not find that there is any security for retaining
that character unless we oppose a policy which
gives to any class in this country . . . a pre
ponderant power in this House. And therefore, in
any measures that we may bring forward, we shall
assert that the elective franchise must be re
garded as a popular privilege, and not as a demo
cratic right.
One had only to look at the French Legislative Assembly or
the American House of Representatives to see inferior
examples of government where universal suffrage prevailed.
Democracy must be avoided at all costs. Rating was to be
the basis of the franchise, not rental as the previous
measures had offered; and in redistribution, no borough was
to be wholly dis-franchised. He appealed for the coopera
tion of the House.
The Resolutions were too vague, however, and were
quickly condemned for their lack of details. The queen was
vexed that cooperation between parties on a national issue
seemed thwarted. But there was little more that Disraeli
could do under the circumstances. The weakness of his
position was soon revealed when, two weeks later, on the
very day that he hoped to bring in a bill based on house
hold suffrage, Lord Cranborne threatened to resign. The
latter had become convinced that although Disraeli's safe
guards would be a check on working class preponderance in
16Parl. Deb.. CUCXXV (Feb. 11, 1867), 232.
the country as a whole, in 60 per cent of the boroughs the
working class would be supreme. Disraeli, faced with this ;
"stab in the back" as he called it, could only revert
hastily— within ten minutes, as one cabinet member put it—
to a moderate plan much like Gladstone's bill of 1866. On
i
February 25, Disraeli offered for the House's consideration
a six pound rating franchise in the boroughs, plus four
"fancy franchises": a vote for ministers of religion and
schoolmasters, one for university graduates, one for those
with t 30 in a savings bank or i 50 in the public funds,
and to all who paid 20s per year in direct taxes. It was
estimated that about 400,000 new voters would be added.
Lowe at once heaped scorn on the government and the meas
ures were withdrawn. Undaunted, Disraeli quickly recovered
and recognized that the temper of the House pointed to a
much bolder bill, that Lord Cranborne's views were not
shared by more than a minority, that outside as well as in
side Parliament, even among Tories, opinion favored house
hold suffrage in the boroughs, probably with some kind of
protective qualifications. By March 1, the tide had turned
in favor of Disraeli and Derby's far more extensive origi
nal plan. On that day Bright assured Disraeli of his sup-
17
port, and on the following the cabinet agreed to revert.
See the account of this in Trevelyan's Bright,
pp. 371-1.
Cranborne, Peel and Carnarvon, the "extra-stupid section of
18
the Stupid Party" as Morley in the Fortnightly said, then
resigned.
On March 18 Disraeli introduced the bill that was
eventually enacted into law. He began at once to distin
guish between popular privileges and democratic rights.
The former was what his bill aimed to extend; it was con
trary to the latter, which demanded equality of conditions.
We do not . . . live--and I trust it will never be
the fate of this country to live--under a democ
racy. The propositions which I am going to make
to-night certainly have no tendency in that direc
tion.19
The principle would be rating, not rental value, as he had
said before.
Any man who has occupied a house for two years,
and been rated to the relief of the poor and pays
his rates--every householder tinder these condi
tions should enjoy the borough franchise.20
Only thus could you be sure that the voter was not a
"migratory pauper," that he had a certain regularity of
character. In addition, the education and property fran
chises of the earlier plan were included, and, as a further
check, if these so qualified were householders, they would
get a dual vote. Compound householders, i.e., those who
18"Public Affairs," 7 (April 1, 1867), 497.
19Parl. Deb., CLXXXVI (Mar. 18), 7.
20Ibid., 13.
did not pay rates directly but through a landlord, were not
to get the vote; when they paid directly, the opportunity
was to be provided for their enfranchisement. The country
franchise was to be reduced from fc 50 to h 15 rating; re
distribution was to be on the same basis as the earlier
bill.
Most speakers who followed disliked the idea of
dual voting. Lord Cranborne, of course, warned that the
checks against democracy would be swept away and pure
household suffrage be the result. Gladstone at once
attacked the bill demanding a lodger franchise, the elimi
nation of distinctions between ratepayers, no tax franchise
or dual voting. It was fortunate, said Disraeli, that a
Mtolerably broad piece of furniture" separated them, be
cause Gladstone addressed him "in the tone and with the air
of a familiar of the Inquisition."2^ On the 26th Disraeli
gave one of his most memorable speeches, in which he
answered his critics and practically secured the carrying
of his bill— though it was not to emerge intact.
The Liberals had no monopoly on solving the Reform
question, he said; the Tories had as fair a record as the
opposition on that score. He repeated the principle behind
his bill: all those who had lived in a house for two years
21Parl. Deb.. CLXXXVI (Mar. 26), 645.
132
or more and paid taxes directly should get the vote in the
boroughs. The principle was what counted, not the number
actually enfranchised. On that subject he thought much
misapprehension prevailed. "It is a mistake to suppose
that mere numbers make democracy. So long as you have fit
ness and variety it is impossible that democracy can pre-
22
vail." If these two elements prevailed— and he thought
they did— the equalitarian dangers of democracy would be
avoided. Actually, he observed, probably fewer would be
enfranchised than Gladstone’s bill of 1866 would have
effected. He concluded with an appeal for conciliation:
Act with us cordially and candidly, assist us to
carry this measure. We will not shrink from de
ferring to your suggestions so long as they are
consistent with the main object of this Bill which
we have never concealed from you, and which is to
preserve the character of the House of Commons.
Act with us, I say, cordially and candidly. You
Will find on our side complete reciprocity of
feeling. Pass the Bill, and then change the
Ministry if you like.23
Gladstone would not accept the invitation. Obsti
nately he continued to press for amendments which most
thought would wreck the bill, in particular one that called
for an elimination of differences between compounding
(indirect) and direct payment of taxes. But a large por
tion of the Liberal ranks deserted to the other side or
22Parl. Deb.. CLXXXVI (Mar. 26), 660.
23Ibid.. 664.
133!
abstained from voting on the bill altogether, and it passed
the second reading on April 12. The Bill was yet to go
through great transformations, but the principle had been
approved, Gladstone crushed, and Disraeli victorious.
Outside Parliament, the Quarterly lamented that
neither man had the confidence of his party; both had dis
carded principles and reduced the reform question to a
matter of competition between the two parties for the favor
of democratic leaders. Gladstone's failure to inspire
confidence in his own party was probably deserved, it said,
because of his too lofty sermonizing to hardheaded English
men. In any event, his principles only led to universal
suffrage and the plundering of property. This could be
seen, for example, in his deceptive talk about distributing
political power in ratio to bearing the economic burdens of
the state. In fact, said the Review, with his advocacy of
no distinction in the method of ratepaying he was trying to
give power to those who did not pay their taxes directly
and thus to those who had not enough property. As a
natural corollary of democracy, those who are taxed the
least are freest with the public money. The inviolability
of property, in short, was endangered.
Disraeli's program seemed even worse than Glad
stone's. The course the Quarterly offered— that the towns
were not to dominate the counties; that the masses of wage
earners were not to swamp the middle class— was ignored,
most of all by Disraeli. The Review said that it would try
to refrain from bitterness, but it was difficult when the
leader of its party in the House of Commons seemed only too
willing to come to terms with democracy, more anxious than
Lord Russell to extend the franchise. Worse, his perfidy
seemed obvious. Disraeli constantly talked of avoiding
democracy, but in fact his lack of principle was leading
directly to that. It cited his earlier speeches to prove
its point. In 1859 (as Disraeli himself was even then
reminding men) he had said:
If you establish a democracy you must in due season
reap the due fruits of a democracy. You will in
due season have great impatience of the public bur
dens combined in due season with great increase of
the public expenditure. . . . You will in due
season have wars entered into from passion and not
from reason; and you will in due season submit to
peace ignominiously sought and ignominiously ob
tained, which will diminish your authority and per
haps endanger your independence. You will in due
season, with a democracy, find that your property
is less valuable, and that your freedom is less
complete. . . . I cannot look upon what is called
reduction of the franchise in boroughs but with
alarm.^
In 1865 in opposing Baines’ Bill he had said essentially .
the same thing: he had hoped the House would "sanction no
step that has a tendency to democracy." In March of 1867
he was still saying this, despite the fact that his scheme
24
"The Four Reform Orators," 122 (April, 1867), 545.
135!
!
of enfranchisement was more radical than the Liberals. As
it had said before, Disraeli’s policy was ruining not only
the country but his party. He had never had enough sym
pathy for the middle class, particularly those who lived in
the cities and towns but had landed interests and bore the
economic burdens of the country. In short, his Tory Democ
racy aligned the Conservative party with the urban Radicals
and not with their natural allies, the Whigs.
The Edinburgh agreed in the condemnation. The Tory
party had deserted its principles in passing Disraeli’s
bill on its second reading. Moreover:
In addition to the positive evil of the course
they are pursuing, according to their own theory
of government, they are guilty, and for the third
time, of the offence of sacrificing to office the
morality and consistency of public men.
Just as in 1846, when Peel had betrayed the Tories into a
liberal measure, so now Disraeli was doing the same thing.
Like the Quarterly, the Edinburgh came down solidly on the
side of property as the basis of the suffrage, but it
wobbled and wanted no fixed approach, no one principle as
Disraeli desired. Gladstone was still "pre-eminently”
qualified to handle the issue.
The Fortnightly answered the conservative fears of
the two older Reviews. The democratic dangers they seemed
25"Todd on Parliamentary Government," 125 (April,
1867), 583.
to see in any extension of the suffrage were more apparent
than real. Social power was many times stronger than the
political in England, which was essentially an aristocratic
republic, and extending the franchise would scarcely ruffle
the social fabric. Moreover, the problem was far more
difficult than it had been in 1832. Then, only one class
had been arrayed against the middle; now the working
classes found the two upper classes combined against them.
At bottom, "the only thing in politics worth aiming at is
power, and power will not be surrendered by those who have
n f i
it." There was the rub of the matter. For all the
schemes being offered of minority representation, "culture"
qualifications, "constitutional" tests, did not seek at
bottom to disturb the actual power which was based on the
ancient social structure of England. Still the workers
should be given the vote, because they would be more likely
to deal with "serious social maladies." They felt them
instead of merely seeing them. Harrison pressed his radi
cal views even further than Morley and Mill— in a spirit
that must have shocked many a moderate-minded reader. The
workman he thought had not only a right to vote, they had
the best qualifications for voting: social sympathies and
a sense of justice; openness and plainness of character;
^Frederic Harrison, "Our Venetian Constitution,"
7 (Mar. 1, 1867), 283.
137!
habits of action and "practical knowledge of social
misery." All these the worker, particularly the Trade
Union man, possessed, while the "industrious fc 10" small
shopkeeper had not.
Bagehot was unique in his radicalism. Indeed, he
was an interesting blend of conservatism and radicalism,
and in an oblique way supported Morley's views in the Fort
nightly. The Reform question, he concluded in his English
Constitution, illustrated the unmistakable fact:
that our constitution is not based on equality, or
on an avowed and graduated adjustment to intelli
gence and property; but upon certain ancient feel
ings of deference and a strange approximative mode
of representing sense and mind, neither of which
must be roughly handled, for if spoiled they can
never be remade, and they are the only supports
possible of ; such as ours, in a people
The English were "a deferential nation, . . . deferential
by imagination, not by reason."
If we wish to comprehend what England really is,
we should fancy a set of Dorsetshire peasants
assembled by the mudpond of the village solemnly
to answer these questions [: "Will you be subject
to persons who live in t 20 houses, or h 30
houses, or will you agree to take votes yourselves
on condition that those who live in big houses, or
those who spell well, or those who add up well,
shall have more votes?"] The utmost stretch of
wisdom the conclave could arrive at would be, "Ah,
sir, you gentlefolk do know; and the Queen, God
bless her: will see us righted."2°
such as ours
111 (Jan. 1, 1867), 99
^Ibid., pp. 91-2.
138
Thus like Morley and Harrison, he thought all the suffrage
proposals missed the mark. Household suffrage over all
England would result in greater power for the landowner in
the comities; in the small boroughs, where the lower orders
sold their votes, bribery and corruption would be in
creased; in the larger boroughs the "wire-puller" would
continue to control the inferior worker though some of the
more intelligent would be above bribery. Lowering of the
suffrage would thus not materially change the House of
Commons; territorial and aristocratic power will have its
seats; money’s power was everywhere. "It is of little use
to alter the suffrage unless we alter ourselves. A free
29
government cannot be wiser than a free nation."
The simplest expedient for solving the Reform ques
tion, said Bagehot, was to go back to the old pre-1832
Constitution when different suffrages existed in different
boroughs. Then the government had let whatever people who
happened to be strongest in each town choose its own mem-
bers--this was the test of "natural selection"— in accord
with ancient traditions. Using the old Constitution as a
basis for reform, you would then include exactly the group
of people that most desired to see included: the skilled
worker. If the franchise was made uniform as it was
29
"The English Constitution," Fortnightly. 7
(Jan. 1, 1867), 95.
139
in 1832, all the ignorant would be scooped in; there would
be no stopping short of full democracy which was most un-
English and would ruin Parliament by making the ’ ’rule of
money, and mainly and increasingly of new money working
30
upon ignorance for its own ends.”
There is a keen two-page cartoon in the April issue
31
of Punch showing Disraeli racing along in a troika
trailed by a ferocious pack of wolves, the leader of which
has the face of John Bright. Adroitly and rather glee
fully, ”Dizzy” is warding off and dividing them up by
dropping the bones of the safeguard resolutions: there is
a dual vote bone with one group snapping at it, farther in
the distance a personal rating bone seized by another, then
a two year residence bone, and so on. It was in this
manner--perhaps not with as much gleeful satisfaction as
the editors of the journal seemed to see, nor quite knowing
where such maneuvers would take him--that Disraeli divided
his opponents in both parties and finally got his bill
accepted--but transformed far beyond the original inten
tions of either himself or Lord Derby. The latter had
• ^Fortnightly, 7 (Jan. 1, 1867), 96. The warning
was not too amiss if one accepts E. H. Carr’s remark in the
New Society (London, 1951), p. 78: ’ ’The spectacle of an
efficient elite maintaining its authority and asserting its
will over the mass by the rationally calculated use of
irrational methods of persuasion is the most disturbing
nightmare of mass democracy.”
31April 20, 1867, pp. 160-1.
withdrawn leaving control over the bill largely in Dis
raeli’s hands, and in the struggle that followed between
the second and third readings (April 12 to July 15), just
as Lord Cranborne had foreseen and Mill had warned, the
safeguards against any sweeping democratization were
dropped one by one to end with simple household suffrage.
An amendment by an Independent Radical Member to lower the
two year residence qualification to one year was accepted
by the government; then a lodger's vote (that Gladstone had
demanded earlier) was admitted; and, most important, an
amendment to give the vote to compound rate payers was
accepted--the very amendment Gladstone had been defeated on
and which, because it doubled the electorate, demolished
Disraeli's original plan. The dual vote proposal, which
was supposed to have been an extra check against democracy
was defeated. Then Mill proposed that votes be given to
women, but at that the House balked. Despite its reforming
zeal, it could not accept this nor his plea for minority
representation as the "most valuable of all protections"
against the democratic evil of one class preponderation.
As the bill finally passed it gave the vote in the
boroughs to householders who had paid their rates and to
lodgers who had occupied rooms valued at h 10 for one year.
In the counties, the vote went to owners of land having
at least h 5 annual value and to occupying tenants who
paid h 12 rental per year. Redistribution created ten new
boroughs, reduced the representatives in thirty-eight
boroughs to one each, ended the return of members in four,
and divided some counties. It added 938,427 voters to the
existing electorate of 1,056,659, more than twice the num-
39
ber estimated for Gladstone’s bill of the preceding year.
To the dismay of the Quarterly and the Edinburgh,
the whole political balance of the country shifted as the
boroughs, for the first time in English history, gained
more voters than the counties. The workers were in a
majority in them (though their representation was not in
creased) ; and in time these larger constituencies and elec
torates were to bring greater party organization, parties
more highly centralized and more demanding of the member
that he be more faithful to the party that elected him.
(Actually, of course, just as the Fortnightly had pre
dicted, the composition of the House of Commons was to
change very little between 1867 and 1885, for the workers
did not as a rule return members of their own class.) Both
parties would have to develop new theories to win the new
voter while holding on to old interests. Disraeli was to
rely more and more on the urban Conservatives who by and
large had supported his bill and less on the old landed
^^English Historical Documents, XII, 120.
1421
aristocrats who had had their misgivings. Similarly for
the Liberal party, it was the old Whigs who suffered the
most severe challenge to their power, and the division
within the party became more pronounced as the commercial
and manufacturing interests (the Oswald Millbanks in
Coningsby) became increasingly the stronger wing. Later,
we shall see the Radical wing pull away from this torso of
the party too.
Thus the constitution of 1832 was "overthrown, and
replaced by another, the logical consequence of which was
democracy."
It cannot be said that the principal actors in the
change— Lowe, Gladstone, and Disraeli--unless we
credit Disraeli with deliberate Machiavellianism
rather than opportunism--fully intended this
result, or that it represented a deliberate judge
ment of Parliament or of the nation. The rising
tension of party feeling made it possible. Lack
of measure, excessive self-will, on the part of
the chief protagonists, brought it about. . . .**•*
The full significance of the bill was of course not clear
at the time— the leap had been made in the dark; but what
the governing classes thought it meant as they reflected on
it was to have an influence on its subsequent effects.
Leading figures at once called attention to certain major
problems that the country faced, and, each in his charac
teristic manner, suggested an approach. Bearing the marks
•^G. M. Young and W. D. Handcock, English Historical
Documents, XII, 120.
143;
i
of their combat, all drew conclusions from their experi
ences by which they sought to influence adjustment to the
new democratic constitution. Reform was in the air.
Sir Robert Lowe, who was filled with "shame, rage,
scorn, indignation and despair," lamented the passing of a :
Golden Age, the closing of an era of stability such as had
never existed before. "Within the bosom of this Bill it
self is contained the germs of endless agitation; . . . so
far from entering on a period of peace and quietness, we
are approaching a period of turmoil and of change."34 He
saw the constitutional question posed by the shift in power,
toward a democracy and Cassandra-like pointed to the prob
lems of the future. Although Disraeli could scarcely lay
claim to any principles, he said, the actual principle
behind the bill was that of equality. The differences
between men had been brushed aside. Therefore the inhabit
ants of the counties would not rest until their franchise
was on the same level as that of the boroughs; the man who
paid less than I 10 a year for his lodgings would demand
equal political rights with those who did; the House of
Lords would, in time, be unable to check the growing power
of the House of Commons; there would arise a demand for an
elected second House and an elected Prime Minister who
34Parl. Deb.. CLXXXVIII (July 15, 1867), 1542.
would therefore not be responsible to the lower House; the
system of purchase in the army would be abandoned for a
system of seniority or merit. With all this in view:
the only thing we can do is as far as possible to
remedy the evil by the most universal measures of
education that can be devised. I believe it will
be absolutely necessary that you should prevail on
our future masters to learn their letters.35
Men might dislike Sir Robert, but they could not ignore his
vision. By and large, they did the things he foretold they
would.
Perhaps the most profound observations on what had
happened and the object lessons for the future appeared in
the Reviews--which in itself, though not new, was a mark of
the increasing democratic tendency to appeal to opinion
outside the legislature. Two of the major figures at once
saw that the great constitutional question posed was that
of responsibility--the whole chain of it, from Prime
Minister to the new electorate. Lord Cranborne, who had
distrusted Disraeli since the early years of his political
life, was of course one of the most bitter in his denunci
ation. In a Quarterly article, perhaps the most brilliant
ever to appear in that journal, he charged that the Bill
was really a triumph for Gladstone and Bright. It had
"bristled with precautions and guarantees and securities"
35Pari. Deb., CLXXXVII (July 15, 1867), 1549.
145
when it passed the second reading, but they had all been
dropped as concessions to Liberal and Radical pressure.
None knew what the bill's effects would be, though with the
inclusion of perhaps a million workers in the electorate
one could expect that since they now preponderated, like
every other class that had dominated a legislature, meas
ures would be slanted on their behalf. Whether England had
done well or ill to entrust a great empire to the poorest
classes was yet to be seen. What could not be ignored in
the present though were the tactics employed. It was bad
enough that Lord Derby and Disraeli should deny that they
or the Conservative party had changed opinions, but the
worst, the most serious charge that was to be levelled at
them, was the degeneration of political morality. If the
practise was continued of saying one thing before entering
office and then doing another once in, the whole basis of
government would be destroyed. It was not so much that the
leaders might have changed opinion, the evil lay in the
fact that they had been voted into office on the basis of
opinions they were supposed to maintain, and once in,
simply in order to stay in office, they had repudiated the
principles that put them there. It would not do to say as
Disraeli did that the Conservative leaders had all along
advocated extending the suffrage. No one had given a nicer
summary of the Conservative view rejecting any extreme
146!
extension than Disraeli. His defense was like that "novel"
defense made by Roman Catholics of the dogma of Immaculate
Conception: that the ancient Fathers had believed in it all
the time, despite the absence of such an idea in their
writings.
Even worse than the rise of democracy which was
sweeping aside all conservative opposition was the accept
ance by the governing classes of England of the rationale
o /:
behind this "Conservative Surrender."JD Upon a show of
force, the party in power was henceforth not to resist
overlong; the great thing was to stay in power. "The great
common end, the ennobling cause is gone. . . . To please
majorities, to prevent his opponents from uniting, to
avert ousting divisions, is avowed to be the leader’s
highest aim, his first thought on taking office." It was
not a valid justification to claim that the Conservative
party had to "settle the question." The appetite for
political power could not be appeased by donations; the
democrats would return until full power was theirs. Thus
party government would cease to be if this tactic was pur
sued. For the leader would lose his independence; and the
House of Commons, which had previously been checked by
360uarterlv, 123 (Oct., 1867), 533-65.
37Ibid., p. 548.
the independence of the party chiefs from assuming "capri
cious omnipotence," would reach for executive power.
The very conditions under which our institutions
exist have been changed; the equilibrium of forces
by which they have been sustained is shaken. The
defences on which we have been wont to rely have
proved utterly rotten. They have broken down
absolutely before they were even subjected to
serious pressure. . . . Those who have trusted to
the faith of public men, or of the patriotism of
parliamentary parties, or the courage of aristo
cratic classes, must now find other resting places
on which to repose their confidence. The supports
on which they have hitherto relied will pierce the
hand that leans on them.
Those who had enjoyed the blessings of English institutions
must now rely on themselves and bestir themselves.
Gladstone, of course, denied that the bill was any
-victory for him, but followed the same vein as Salisbury in
one of the bitterest articles ever to appear in the Edin-
39
burgh. Scarcely any obloquy was too bad for the Derby-
Disraeli government. Public sense had been "sickened" and
"outraged." The great "enchanter" had duped the rest of
his party into following him in deceit and plagiarism. For
Disraeli had simply appropriated Bright's ideas wholesale
while pretending that he had been for household suffrage
all along. That had only been the snare for the Radical
wing of the Liberal party, and then to salve the conscience
^Quarterly. 123 (Oct., 1867), 553.
^"The Session and Its Sequel," 126 (Oct., 1867),
541-84.
of the Tories the bill was supposed to have set up checks
against democracy. These had been dropped in the scramble
simply to pass the bill and retain power. A more blame
worthy evil to be charged against the Derby-Disraeli
government, however, was the perversion of cabinet govern
ment in the manner so ably described by Walter Bagehot: a
minority ministry proposing measures it did not believe in
merely to attract the extremists of the majority.- More
over, in the constitutional disorganization attending this
"political immorality," the government had abrogated their
leadership to the House of Commons. The whole spirit and
working of the House, said Gladstone, depended on the
initiative of the Crown. But in this bill the true initi
ative had been taken by a private member when he had pro
posed the amendment that wiped out the distinctions between
compound and direct rate payers thus doubling the number of
voters and giving the bill its democratic character.
Indeed, everyone had had a hand in making the Reform Bill
of 1867. When Disraeli invited individual members to shape
the measure and then accepted all the amendments while
dropping the checks against democracy, the government had
transferred the powers of the Crown and the Executive to
the House of Commons. Perhaps the severest criticism then
of the Derby-Disraeli Bill and the tactics used in passing
it was the democratic quality.
149;
But Disraeli was triumphant, and they could not
touch him. Punch portrayed him as a colossal sphinx being
towed in majestic splendor by a bowed and heaving mass of
Lords and Commoners. He scoffed at the two articles that
had attacked him:
He who has written the summary of the session
in the Edinburgh is not mounted on the fiery barb
of Francis Jeffrey; he is rather placed upon a
prancing hearse horse, with which he consummates
the entombment of Whig principles. The "Conserva
tive Surrender" . . . is what one would call a
replica. You have had the subject treated in
speeches, in articles, in reviews, and sometimes
in manifestoes. The colouring is not without
charm, but the drawing is inaccurate, the per
spective is false, the subject is monotonous.
. . . I should say that article was written by a
very clever man who has made a very great mistake.
Really these Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews,
no man admires them more than myself. But I
admire them as I do first-rate, first-class post-
houses, which in old days, for half a century or
so— to use a Manchester phrase— carried on a roar
ing trade. Then there comes some revolution or
progress which no person can ever have contem
plated. They find things are altered. They do
not understand them, and, instead of that intense
competition and mutual vindictiveness which before
distinguished them, they suddenly quite agree.
The boots of the "Blue Boar" and the chambermaid
of the "Red Lion" embrace, and are quite in accord
in this--in denouncing the infamy or railroads.^
In his defense, Disraeli claimed that he had edu
cated his party, and, rather than wreck it as the old
Quarterly had charged, he had restored it to its rightful
place in the government of England.
^Moneypenny and Buckle, IV, 556-7.
150
I had to prepare the mind of the country, and to
educate— if it be not arrogant to use such a
phrase— to educate our party. It is a large party,
and requires its attention to be called to ques
tions of this kind with some pressure. I had to
prepare the mind of Parliament and the country on
this question of Reform.
That ’ ’education" had consisted of laying down certain prin
ciples for the solution of the Reform question; and these
were to be "in harmony with the manners and customs of the
people you are attempting to legislate for." Thus in the
matter of the borough suffrage: —
there is a principle in saying a man shall have a
vote who has, by his residence and his contribu
tion to local taxation, proved that he is inter
ested in the welfare of his community. That man
is a man whom you may trust in preference to a
migratory pauper. . . . Then, if you can apply
that principle in harmony with the manners and
customs of your country, then I say that you have
the chance of a solution--a happy solution— of a
great question.^
Disraeli had preserved his rating and residence principles,
even if he had dropped the hedging qualifications. On that
ground he can be cleared of the charge that he had no prin
ciples.
He contended also that the Reform Bill had helped
restore the Tory party to its rightful place in government.
The Liberal monopoly had been terminated and:
when the hubbub has subsided, when the shrieks and
screams which were heard some time ago, and which
4Hloneypenny and Buckle, IV, 555
42Ibid.. pp. 555-6.
151
have already subsided into sobs and sighs, shall
be thoroughly appeased, nothing more terrible will
be discovered to have occurred than that the Tory
party has resumed its natural functions in the
government of the country. For what is the Tory
party unless it represents national feeling? If
it do not represent national feeling, Toryism is
nothing. It does not depend upon hereditary
coteries of exclusive nobles. It does not attempt
power by attracting to itself the spurious force
which may accidentally arise from advocating cosmo
politan principles or talking cosmopolitan jargon.
The Tory party is nothing unless it represent and
uphold the institutions of the country. . . . I
cannot help believing that, because my Lord Derby
and his colleagues have taken a happy opportunity
to enlarge the privileges of the people of England,
we have not done anything but strengthen the insti
tutions of the country, the essence of whose force
is that they represent the interests and guard the
rights of the people.^3
The Reform Bill, as a response to national feeling, was
thus Toryism at its best. And even his opponent Mill ad
mitted that this was no novel turn to Disraeli’s mind, that
this desire to restore the Tory party had been his lifelong
endeavor. "From as long as 1 can remember,” said Mill,
Disraeli:
has seemed to me remarkably constant to a certain
political ideal, which may be defined as an os
tensibly large and wide democracy, led and guided
by the landed interest. He has always aimed at
shaping our institutions after this type, whenever
he has meddled with them, either as a theoretical
or a practical politician; and there need be no
doubt that he sincerely thinks it the best form of
Government. ^
/ Q
■^Moneypenny and Buckle, IV, 553.
44Parl. Deb.. CLXXXVII (May 9, 1867), 284.
1521
t
In summing up his position, Disraeli answered his detrac
tors and the cautious minds who feared what he had done for
the future of England:
For my part, I do not believe that the country is
in danger. I think England is safe in the race of
men who inhabit her, that she is safe in something
much more precious than her accumulated capital—
her accumulated experience; she is safe in her
national character, in her fame, in her tradition
of a thousand years, and in that glorious future
which I believe awaits her.
What was not so easy for Disraeli to defend was the
charge that he had betrayed a Conservative trust and sur
rendered the government to the control of "mere numbers."
It is clear from what has been said above that Disraeli
had all along protested against any act that had a tendency
toward democracy, and he certainly did not adhere to what
—
he had said on this score before passage of the bill. It
is probably true that neither he nor Lord Derby contem
plated any radical step, and it is even possible that
neither really understood what they had done after the bill
Ufa
was passed. Yet the act of 1867 was the most important
single step made in the establishment of democracy.
Disraeli and the party leaders had long--right down
to 1867--talked of the dangers of entrusting power to a
single class and that in any reform only the best of the
45Parl. Deb.. CLXXXVIII (July 15, 1867), 1613-14.
46
See Jones, Lord Derby, p. 325.
workers, the "pretorian guard,1 1 should be admitted to the
vote. This, however, could not have been a permanent solu
tion, and the queen, Lord Derby, and Disraeli had all come
to believe that some sort of lasting settlement would have
to be made that spring. The House was clearly in a reform
ing mood (after the failure of the "Ten Minute Bill," if
not before) that supported this hope. Therefore, Disraeli,
who was chiefly responsible for piloting the bill through
a House in which his party was in a minority and in which
he had thus to rely on cooperation, had to accept some of
the amendments of the majority. In this he dropped the
checks against democracy. On the occasion of the critical
amendment that granted the vote to compound rate payers
thereby doubling the electorate, he was faced with the
crucial decision: either accept the domination of numbers
or abandon anything like a lasting solution and return the
country to further agitation. He chose the former. He
could still say that he was consistent with his principle
of Tory Democracy in which he had held that public opinion
was an authentic organ of modem representative government.
But he could not say that he had resisted democracy--at
least not as firmly as the Roman spirited Salisbury would
have. Perhaps at bottom the issue between the two great
Conservatives was the difference between an autocratic pro
consul and a flexible opportunist.
154 j
The great constitutional questions then, which the
Edinburgh and Quarterly articles of Gladstone and Salisbury
had raised, were these: to whom and in what degree is the
Prime Minister responsible? To the party and its prin
ciples which he represented? To the lower House whose mem
bers had been returned with a mandate from the people to
reform the electorate? Gladstone’s answer was that a
minority government simply could not avoid being unconsti
tutional on an issue such as this; that the only ones who
might legitimately handle the question were the majority
Liberals. But the Tories had no charge not to reform.
Everyone had agreed something must be done. Disraeli had
as much right as Gladstone to attempt a solution upon being
returned to office. So he leaped Niagara coming down on
the side of responsibility to national opinion. What Dis
raeli and his bill had done then was to highlight the
decline of the independence of the Prime Minister and of
the members of Parliament who would henceforth become in
creasingly dependent on public opinion and on the electors.
Indeed, in time the Prime Minister would make a large part
of his appeal for support outside Parliament to the public
at large. Democracy was on the rise and Disraeli had aided
that despite all his protests to the contrary.
And what of the democratic future? What was one to
expect? How face it? What must be done to prepare for it
155
in light of the developments of 1867? The cautious old I
Edinburgh was at first afraid. "A new epoch . . . not
brilliant, not honourable, not auspicious; but which
threatens to leave a scar on our Parliamentary history" had
opened. Disraeli, it recognized, had launched a new trend
in politics; but the view was dim. The Prime Minister was
no longer leader of the House of Lords; government was
henceforth to rest openly on the House of Commons. And
given the character of this "profound vacuity" with his un-
English faculty of the histrionic, Disraeli or some succes
sor would find irresistible temptation to appeal to the
masses of the newly enfranchised outside of Parliament.
They, in turn, would soon be forming parties and wanting to
talk directly to the Prime Minister instead of going
through their representatives. Government, in short, was
bound to become sensational; "a popular tribuneship would
supersede ministerial responsibility."^
Within a year the Edinburgh calmed down and dis
covered that none of its worst fears had materialized. No
great popular disturbances had occurred. In fact the
future augured well. There had been a fresh infusion of
blood in the electoral ranks that had strengthened consti
tutional liberty and government. Even if workmen or
^"The Disraeli Ministry," 127 (April, 1868), 579.
1561
demagogues were to be returned to Parliament, it would
48
’ ’only add to the catholicity of representation." There
was indeed a greater impulse toward necessary reforms.
Rather nostalgically, however, the Review noted that one
could expect less reverence for privilege and prejudice in
the future.
The Quarterly, like its old opponent, was at first
dismayed at what had happened and foresaw only a desperate
future. It was the beginning of the:
second and by far the greater English Revolution.
. . . Contrary to the teaching of all history,
more especially contrary to the teaching of the
history of England, we have flung aside all moder
ation, all foresight, all prudence. . . . We seek
to escape the evils of unbridled democracy by the
evils of unbounded corruption. . . . We call upon
the Radicals to save us, we blush to say it, from
the Tory Government.
The Radicals had won the field, indirectly if not directly,
and the best clue as to what lay in store for England was
to be found in the writings of John Stuart Mill, which, for
the Review, was a painful issue since it had agreed with so
much that he had said before he had entered Parliament.
Englishmen might expect, since Mill suggested that public
opinion was higher than law, that the Irish Church would be
disestablished, that there would be a greater tax burden on
4®’ ’The Expiring Parliament," 128 (Oct., 1868), 543.
49"Reform Essays," 123 (July, 1867), 277.
the rich, that the minority of skilled laborers would
suffer at the hands of the majority of unskilled through
enforced equality of earnings, that legislation would be
used to limit competition in the labor market and to raise
wages. Worst, there was that dismal future painted by Mill
when he said that "the natural tendency of representative
government, as of modem civilization, is towards collec
tive mediocrity." Beneath the rule of the masses the
essentially conservative character of England would be
eroded away.'*®
Consistent with its character, the Quarterly, unlike
the Edinburgh, was unwilling to accept the new arrangement
with the same hopefulness. The conservative mind adjusted
slowly to the new society. For the future, the chief ques
tions to be solved were the relations between capital and
labor, the elevation of the poorer classes, increased
facilities for education, and the question of Church estab
lishment or disestablishment. But the greatest issue over
shadowing all others was:
whether we are hereafter to live under a Government
adopting itself wisely to existing circumstances,
and yet not unmindful of historical associations,
or to plunge headlong into the chaos of democracy.
50
"The New School of Radicals," 124 (April, 1868),
477-504.
•*^"The Public Questions at Issue," 125 (Oct., 1868),
572.
159|
petty issues like church rates or the ballot, now national
issues had to be met: education must be made national and
secular, the labour question faced, and the Irish problem
settled. Before long the democratic movement would sweep
away further privileges and lead to the "higher conception
of government of all by all, of a whole people by them
selves."^^ Thus the task of statesmen was to bring social
unity, not social equality. Statesmen must now remember
that, as Burke, who had prepared the way for the advent of
democracy, had said: "government existed for the people,
and . . . the will of the people is the irresistible master
of those to whom it had entrusted the guardianship of its
55
rights." Statesmen were to be concerned, "not at all
with the rights of the Government, but altogether with the
interests and happiness of the governed.And this not
passively, said Morley. As Americans had written in their
Declaration of Independence, men had a "right to happiness,"
[sic] and a "duty" to help their neighbors attain this hap
piness. In such currents of thought the old individualism
waned, the democratic welfare state of the future arose.
The Palmerstonian Compromise had ended. England was
now to move rapidly forward, hurried on by a spirit of
54"Edmund Burke," 7 (Feb. 1, 1867), 133.
^5Ibid., 7 (Mar. 1, 1867), 313.
56Ibid., 8 (July 1, 1867), 56.
1601
change in the air. A host of legislative acts were to
follow, all pointed out by the spokesmen and organs of the
governing classes who had soon recognized the magnitude of
the revolution they had effected. What provoked this wave
in the democratic movement is not easily seen and reduced
to elemental causes. Reform movements, of course, are
rarely attributable to just one cause; there is always a
multiplicity of issues, a bustle of programs, an evasive
element of the mind--what men think is wrong and needs
correcting. It is then that they read articles, listen to
orators, and march in demonstrations. These actions en
courage others and the movement grows and rises. Certainly
economic conditions and political grievances had not been
enough. They had provided a flooring for change; but
England was as prosperous and satisfied as she had ever
been. To sum up then, there was a timely confluence, an
interaction, of personalities and ideas along with economic
and political ripeness of time that lifted the wave of the
future. Take away any of the elements we have considered
in this chapter--Disraeli, the Trade Unions, or the
Quarterly--and surely the results would have been differ
ent. In an age of reform the more cautious minds held back
while the bolder pushed ahead, each according to his inner
vision of the democratic society that lay ahead.
158!
There was no doubt that the good conservative would choose
the former and continue to act as a brake upon any impul
sive rush toward popular government.
John Morley's Fortnightly embraced the future in a
curious blend of radicalism and conservatism: on the one
hand he pointed to the socialist future and on the other
conjured up Disraeli's old Tory Democracy in a new light.
"The first stage in the New Revolution has been accom-
52
plished." Political power had been transferred from the
privileged class to the nation. Now the intelligence of
the country was linking itself with the masses against
wealth, social rank, vested interest. The harbinger of the
future who led this New Young England movement was Mill.
The Coningsbys and Vivian Greys were no more, the new
generation of Young Englanders wanted a national government
53
based on a sense of community, not classes. The truth,
said Morley, was that people were weary of the old politi
cal divisions. The only real division now was between the
Obstructionists of the old territorial class and their
allies against the National party geared to the rising
power of the industrial system and cognizant of its needs
for further reform. There could be no more caviling over
■^"The Liberal Programme," 8 (Sept. 1, 1867), 359.
■^"Young England and the Political Future," 7
(April 1, 1867), 491-6.
CHAPTER VI
CHANGING ATTITUDES TOWARD THE WORKER: 1867-77
The workmen of England . . . are ready to claim
their right to the suffrage.
John Morley
in the Fortnightly Review
Their policy is a wild and bloody dream.
Lord Salisbury
in the Quarterly Review
The "leap" toward democracy had been made; debating
was over; it was now a matter of adjustment of and to the
new society. Both the governing classes and those whom
they had admitted to political power had somehow to work
out a new set of relations. Of the two, the opinion and
action of the former was, of course, what continued to
count the most--they were still in command of soeiety--and
the process of their adjusting to demos was revealed along
two lines of development in the ten years that followed the
Reform Bill: the growth of a new attitude toward the use of
State power on behalf of the working classes, and secondly,
a new estimate of the worker's power and his use of it. By
the middle of Disraeli's great administration (1874-80) it
was possible for conservatives to take a less fearful view
161
162;
of the worker, for radicals to press more boldly toward
greater democracy, and for another extension of political
power once again to become a public issue.
Disraeli's triumph in 1867 had been brief; given the
opportunity to vote, the workers chose Gladstone instead,
who came into office in the following year. At first it
seemed their confidence had not been misplaced. Reform
followed reform in what appeared to be a transformation of
English society. But they were essentially liberal rather
than democratic, more to be squared with the former's
individualism than the letter's collectivism. They em
bodied principles shared by the two philosophies, and,
indeed, they were necessary steps to be taken if the change
to democracy was not to be revolutionary; yet in the end
they failed to satisfy many working class leaders while
they disturbed large sections of even the Liberals and
roused bitter conservative opposition.
Cardwell's Army Regulation Bill had no direct bear
ing on the worker's interests, but it did reveal an import
ant aspect of the conflict between democracy and the older
aristocratic government that will be examined later. In
the debates over it, for almost the first time since 1832,
the peers were brought into "naked and downright conflict
with the commons by class motives on a class issue.
1
Ensor, Modem England, p. 12.
163;
The bill proposed to abolish the system of obtaining com
missions and promotion by purchase. Liberals, of course,
supported the principle of "opening the careers to talent,1 1
but the military themselves did not care for it and con
servatives took a dim view of middle class officers in
charge of the "best army in the world." The Quarterly
informed Sir Charles E. Trevelyan that the qualities most
needed by the military could be best found among men of
high social rank. Could one really expect to find "dash"
2
in middle class business men? In the end the conflict was
resolved by the queen, who issued a royal warrant after the
bill had been thrown out by the Lords.
Reform of the civil service had a distinctly anti
democratic aspect about it, though again, it revealed
another important side of the emerging democratic state--
the growth of a bureaucracy. Attempts had been made to
economize and organize the service ever since the Trevelyan-
Northcote Report of 1854 had recommended unification and
recruitment by examination only. Opposition had come,
partly from fear of creating an irresponsible bureaucratic
3
machine, and partly (even from the queen) on the grounds
^"Purchase in the Army," Quarterly. 124 (April,
1868), 530.
^See the article by Anthony Trollope, "The Civil
Service," Fortnightly. 2 (n.d., 1865), 613-26.
164!
i
that in place of "gentlemen" would come "low people without
the breeding or feelings of gentlemen."^ Indeed, Gladstone
had recommended competition on the basis that it would do
just the opposite, that it would produce a more aristo
cratic— not a democratic--corps.^ In 1870 the reforms were
effected, the principle of competition accepted. But the
examinations, since they stressed the classics, tended to
elevate "gentlemen" from the universities and left the
"Whig cousinage" system of patronage in its palmiest
period.^
One of the commonest fears of the governing classes
before 1867 had been that with the extension of political
power to the lower orders corruption and intimidation in
politics would increase. The Ballot Act of 1872 sought to
meet this problem (with limited success) by making voting
secret. It was hoped that the workers and even the lower
middle class might thereby be protected, though opponents
of the measure (including Mill) who saw nothing undemo
cratic in open voting, argued that a man ought to have
enough strength of character to vote openly, that it was
undignified to vote in secret, and that corruption might
^Briggs, Victorian People, p. 111.
^English Historical Documents. XII, 557-8.
^Ibid., p. 558.
165
even be increased by making personation easier. The old
Edinburgh spoke for many and caught something of the pre-
democratic era's attitude toward politics when it said that
there were more evils in secret voting than "when every man
bears the public responsibility of his vote."^ Despite the
fact that such a ballot had long been a part of the Radical
program, it passed amid popular apathy and, of course, the
Lords' hostility.
Throughout the period under consideration there were
two great issues on which the public mind attached itself,
two that went right to the bottom of the emerging demo
cratic society: education and the "condition of England."
Curiously, and unfortunately, neither drew the best inter
ests of Gladstone; and perhaps partly as a result of this
his education and labor laws, though great steps forward,
exasperated Radicals and trade unionists while their
Liberalism provoked the Conservatives.
All had agreed in principle with Robert Lowe when he
had declared after passage of the Reform Bill that it was
absolutely necessary to "prevail on our future masters to
learn their letters." Public opinion, in fact, had been
awakened for some years prior to the need for reform of
elementary education; and extending the vote had encouraged
^"Dissolution of Parliament," 122 (July, 1865), 268.
166'
a desire to reform the whole educational system, from
teaching the "three R’s" to a modernized curriculum in the
secondary and university level. The advent of democracy,
as Mill had foretold, was galvanizing the desire for edu
cation, though bitter difficulties were to arise over the
details of compulsion, cost, and content in the new system.
"We must educate all classes," not just the new
O
political masters, said Morley in the Fortnightly. How
well the new constitution worked would depend in large
part, not so much on the workers, but on the conduct of the
higher governing classes. They were the ones who set
examples. The new voter certainly had to gain at least the
rudiments of a general and political education, but the
"profound and brutish ignorance of the majority of the
English poor . . . [was] only an exaggeration of a similar
ignorance in the middle and upper classes of English
Q
society." The existing schools were merely dabbling in
everything except a knowledge of English practical life.
They must offer a wider grasp of current civilization, more
foreign languages, and a better understanding of science.
And consistent with Mill's belief that education could aid
in the regeneration of society, Frederic Seebohm joined
^"Public Affairs," 8 (July 1, 1867), 112-15.
^Ibid., p. 113.
...................... 167
Morley in voicing the democratic hope that elementary edu
cation would be "the training which it is needful to give
to children in order that they may have a fair start in
life."10
The Edinburgh, while it could not take quite such a
dim view of the state of intelligence in those who ran
England, did agree that the education of the upper classes
was sadly inadequate. It was still too narrowly concen
trated on the classics; it had to be liberalized with a
study of contemporary histories and above all a study of
science. Characteristically, and with curious echoes in
America of the 1950’s, the Edinburgh emphasized the need
for more science and technical studies with less concern
for the classics lest England’s political and industrial
supremacy be lost to other countries. Already the Review
had seen the coming challenge to the "mother of Parlia
ments" and "workshop of the world" that would be more
evident in another decade. Moreover, to maintain England’s
position in the world, the Edinburgh called for greater
discipline on the college level and a check to the
"idolatry of athleticism":
Athletic sports are becoming a positive nuisance;
. . . in place of men engaging in the true work of
university, those games and sports are positively
10"0n National Compulsory Education," 14 (July 1,
1870), 103.
almost taking the place of learning. . . . This
idolatry of athleticism . . . is one of the
greatest mischiefs of the day.li
The Quarterly agreed with the others on the need for
introducing more science into the traditional curricula of
universities, though it continued to lean toward the ideal
of "the education of Christian gentlemen." Religion and
the classics were not to be dumped overboard or even down
graded; they were to be on a par with scientific studies.
On the level of popular education, the Quarterly urged the
spreading of enlightenment among the masses as the "best
security" against democratic demagogues. Conditions were
simply lamentable in that area. Because the State had not
troubled itself to control schools nor to create them,
there now existed:
a population perhaps the least instructed of the
great nations of Europe; vast masses growing up in
our crowded cities in absolute heathenism and the
darkest ignorance. . . .12
Education, the Review said, was one of the "first necessi
ties of a people," and to provide it was "one of the first
duties of a State." Thus even conservatives were ready for
the great steps to be made in the reform of education.
Legislation beginning the attempt to reform and
^"Liberal Education in England," 127 (Jan., 1868),
140.
12
"Scientific versus Amateur Administration," 127
(July, 1869), 46.
liberalize secondary and university level education was
passed in 1868, 1869, and 1871. But that was for the
governing classes. Perhaps the most important, certainly
the most controversial, measure was the Forster Education
Act of 1870 which aimed at providing state supported ele
mentary education for the masses. The condition of ele
mentary education had been summed up by the Report of the
1 ^
Newcastle Commission in 1861. The voluntary principle on
which the State had assumed a limited responsibility for
education back in the 1830's had succeeded in getting more
children into schools than in Holland and France and almost
as many as the compulsory principle of the Prussian system.
Out of 2,655,767 that ought to have been in schools,
2,535,462 were "on the books." But about one-fifth of
these were in purely private schools that provided unsatis
factory education; and of the remainder in the superior
denominational schools (chiefly belonging to the Church of
England, though government inspected and aided), less than
20 per cent could be considered properly educated. More
over, attendance in these schools was often quite bad.
Perhaps the weakest point in the whole voluntary system was
the provision of schools for urban areas, where the
13
The figures that follow are from the reprint of
part of it in, English Historical Documents, XII, 891-7.
170 !
I
industrial system had drawn masses of the workers. The
laboring classes simply had neither enough money nor public
interest to create them. Thus the extension of the vote to
the urban working classes made it imperative that something
be done.
W. E. Forster’s bill sought to remedy the situation
by "filling in the gaps" of the voluntary system; it did
not try to supersede what already existed. The aim was to
cover the country with good schools and then get parents to
send their children. The country was to be divided into
school districts; an inquiry on the provision of schools in
each was to follow. If the voluntary schools were adequate
and satisfactory, they were to be retained and their govern
ment aid increased. If the schools provided for the area
were inadequate a period of "grace" was to follow in which
the need was to be made good by voluntary efforts. If this
failed, an elected school board was to make good at public
expense. "Board schools" were to be set up and maintained
by government grants, local rates, and parents1 fees. Com
pulsory attendance was to be at the discretion of each
board. "No religious catechism or religious formulary which
is distinctive of any particular denomination" was to be
taught in the board schools, though undenominational Bible
teaching was permitted.^ As some anticipated, this was
• ^English Historical Documents, XII, 835.
171
the thorniest part of the solution.
Dissenters were satisfied, but Anglicans and Catho
lics were not. The voluntary schools of the latter two
continued to give religious instruction, and government
grants to them were doubled by an amendment of Gladstone’s.
(Both Gladstone and Salisbury, it will be remembered, were
high churchmen.) But the two old churches wanted to keep
control over as large a proportion of the schools as they
could, even though they could not always support their old
ones, and as a result their representatives on the new
school boards too often became mere obstructionists. Con
troversies rankled throughout the 1870's which, of course,
cannot be understood without remembering that religion was
at the very core of Victorian life, that, as R. C. K. Ensor
puts it, Englishmen were a "people of the Book" somewhat
15
like the devout Moslem. In the typical English village,
all above infancy went to church while children went twice
on Sunday. Moreover, the school issue was but part of a
larger crisis. Science had once again put religion on the
defensive with the publication of Darwin’s work, and there
were reverberations of the conflict on all levels of
society. Thus when secularism appeared to be invading
•^Modern England, p. 138.
x There is a fine study of this by A. W. Brown, The
Metaphysical Society: Victorian Minds in Crisis, 1869-80
(New York: Columbia University, 1947).
one of the dearest areas of church instruction, the educa
tion of the child, conservatives were to put up the bitter
est resistance at what they felt were attacks on the very
foundation of civilization. Democracy and industrialism
were indeed driving wedges in the old social structure.
Both Joseph Chamberlain in the Birmingham Education
League and John Morley in the Fortnightly soon caustically
attacked the new system for leaving too much power over
education in the hands of the established church. The Act,
said Morley, was practically an extension of endowment of
the Church of England. Mr. Gladstone, who had dealt so
admirably with the Irish Church, now:
as if to compensate the Anglican church for the
loss of prestige she had sustained by Irish dis
establishment, . . . did his best to hand over to
her the elementary education of England. . . .
There was a political obliquity in this which far
surpassed that of the Conservatives in establish
ing household suffrage. And Mr. Disraeli had the
satisfaction of dishing the Whigs, who were his
enemies. Mr. Gladstone, on the other hand, dished
the Dissenters, who were his friends. Unfortu
nately he omitted one element of prime importance
in these rather nice transactions. He forgot to
educate his party.-*-'
In brief, charged Morley, education had been left with
obscurantists whose whole history was one long tale of
resistance to progress. On top of this, the State was tax
ing people to pay for secular education with religious
"^"The Struggle for Education," 20 (Aug. 1, 1873),
149.
instruction supposedly confined to a period either before
or after regular school hours. But the clergy were not
always abiding by the intent of that and had only a mild
interest in non-religious teaching. Indeed, the Anglican
and Roman churches were both openly avowing that now was a
greater opportunity for gaining communicants. The answer,
said Morley, was more self-government with the inclusion of
more laymen on the school boards, particularly of the rural
parishes. It was appalling to think of extending the vote
to the rural worker whose educational provision was such
that he could not even read a newspaper. And in the years
that followed, when the idea of reforming Parliament gained
wider currency, Morley continued to attack the system for
its failure to offer free, compulsory, secular education to
a society in which science and reason were becoming daily
more important.
The Edinburgh denied the charge of Chamberlain and
Morley that the voluntary school managers were neglecting
secular education. In any event, "religious teaching . . .
is far the highest that elementary schools can well
TO
give.” The Act, said the Review, was daily proving its
worth with its moderation, in extending the principle of
self-government (which was the "best security against
■^"Results of the Education Act," 139 (Jan., 1874),
n. 232.
174
a centralized democratic tyranny") and in the degree to
which it was introducing the principle of interference by
the state, when the old voluntary system had proved inade
quate. The new board schools, it hoped, would provide
healthy rivalry to the voluntary schools.
The Quarterly, in general, approved of the new
system though it was wary lest the board schools, with sup
port from public funds, prove too much competition for the
voluntary schools which the Church dominated. Nor was it
particularly pleased with the opening made for secular edu
cation, and it was adamant that the Radicals with their
program of free, state, secular education be opposed lest
19
the Christianity of England be undermined.
Few had been completely satisfied with the act.
Thus it was no surprise when, at the close of the period
covered by this chapter, James Kay-Shuttleworth1s authori
tative evaluation of the educational system pointed out the
shortcomings. In the urban areas (where most of the board
schools had appeared) the resistance of lower class parents
to sending their children to school still hampered educa
tional opportunities. There was still resistance from
religious groups who feared that education would become too
secular, and an economic conflict had grown between the
■^"The New School Boards," 131 (July, 1871), 263-
300.
public interests of the board schools and the private in-
20
terests of the voluntary schools. Yet, in spite of these
defects, a start had been made in fulfilling the obligation
of the State to the new democracy. Between 1870 and 1876
a million and one-half new schools were created. Forster's
system had "filled in the gaps." Moreover, in 1876 Dis
raeli’s administration continued the work by making educa
tion compulsory, while Salisbury's administration made it
free in 1891. Lastly, if the system had not moved fast
enough for some, at least it had been a step toward the
highest democratic ideal. No less a person than Thomas
Huxley, whose word carried particular weight in these
matters, since he was a member of the London School Board,
pronounced that the Education Act was "one of the most
9 1
satisfactory and hopeful events in our modem history."
It was, he thought, a major step in the emancipation of
human potential, an authentic answer to all those who pre
ferred to keep the "hewers of wood and drawers of water" in
their place. And to those laissez-faire holdouts like
Mr. Spencer, who still protested at State intervention, he
replied that modem civilization had made it so that it was
20
"Results of the Education Act and Code of 1870,"
Fortnightly. 25 (May 1, 1876), 685-705.
21
"Administrative Nihilism," Fortnightly, 16
(Nov. 1, 1871), 525.
less and less possible to live without affecting someone
else. Therefore, there was little choice; the State had to
intervene and to regulate anti-social activity. For most
of Huxley's countrymen the hand of the administrative State
now touched them through the democratic educational system.
Meanwhile, what of the worker himself? How he was
using his new political power was of fundamental importance
to the steady, gradual advance of democracy. It will be
remembered that both opponents and supporters of the Reform
Bill had entertained a wide range of fears and hopes on
this subject. Lowe, for example, had prophesied that they
would "set up shop for themselves," that they would gain
control of the state and use it for their own class inter
ests while making war on all superiority. The Quarterly,
too, had seen naked despotism in the industrial organiza
tion of the workers and claimed that this would certainly
be transferred to the political arena. The State would
soon be used to regulate labor conditions, to tax the
wealthy, and to drive toward "collective mediocrity." The
Fortnightly, quite the opposite, of course, had hoped that
the Liberal party would include more working men in its
ranks and gear itself to the rising industrial system. The
party would have to recognize the needs of the new society,
meet them, and seek actively to promote the happiness of
the majority. As everyone knows, subsequent events were
177;
to confirm all these visions in greater or less degree. If
the fears and hopes were not completely materialized, they
were not wholly without basis. It was a matter of time and
interpretation.
In 1866 the London Working Man's Association was
formed to organize support for the second Reform Bill.
When the measure passed, the Association sought to get
working men elected to Parliament, or at least the election
of independents who would support Radicals and some Liber
als. It did not try to form a separate party. The program
which the Association thus hoped to have carried included
a demand for manhood suffrage, redistribution of seats, the
secret ballot, a national system of education, legal pro
tection of trade union rights, and laws to better housing
and factory conditions. By 1870, however, the organization
had ceased to count in national politics and was replaced
by the Labour Representation League. The League was formed
in 1869, chiefly of London labor interests. Its principal
aim was to organize the workers into an electoral power and
then to get qualified workers elected. In the 1874 elec
tions it supported fifteen candidates (most of them working
men) of which two were successful: Alexander MacDonald and
Thomas Burt. So began what by 1900 would become the Labour
Party. Actually the workers were still suspicious of their
own kind, and as late as 1886 there were only eleven labor
178
i
members. In this period then, the enfranchised working man
had clearly failed appreciably to alter the composition of
Parliament or to get any political program directly car
ried. Nor, of course, had he "set up shop for himself."
The main interests of labor, however, as we shall see, lay
outside of politics.
Gladstone's parliament of 1868, in fact, far from
opening its doors to new faces, was composed of much the
same old representation: nearly half the members belonged
to the landed nobility and gentry, another 116 represented
the commercial classes, there were 121 representing rail
ways, and scarcely fifty professional and intellectual
representatives. Only forty were under 30 years of age,
150 between 30 and 40, 368 between 40 and 60, and 100
22
over 60. It had actually become harder, said the Quar
terly, for independent young men to enter. The Edinburgh
was pleased with the reformed parliament, however. The
workers had not returned any of their own men to represent
them, and "the House of Commons represents as fully as it
ever did all the great and ancient interests of property
and social position." Thus, said the Review, the "working
men have shown themselves fully worthy of the confidence
^"Politics as a Profession," Quarterly, 126 (Jan.,
1869), 268.
1791
23
reposed in them as electors."
To the Fortnightly, all this was at first dis
couraging. Morley said that the legislature had been
filled with the "richest and stupidest men in England."
The workmen had not really understood that sovereign power
was theirs; they had only returned men who composed a
"Chamber of Mediocrity." Hopefully, however, he thought
that in a few more years the new electorate would realize
its power.Morley's collaborator, Frederic Harrison,
agreed: the ideas of the new situation had not yet formed;
the leaders of the coming Revolution had not yet appeared;
the social force of conservatism remained paramount. What
change there was was really a moral one. Observe too, said
Harrison, that the new voters have no hostile intentions
toward property--indeed, they have "a deep and healthy
respect for it in itself." They do, however, see the
duties of property and look upon it chiefly for its ability
to bring social well-being. Thus like Caesar's victorious
soldiers at the Rubicon, workingmen will not wait indefi-
2 S
nitely if the old political figures do not offer change.
23"The New Ministry," 129 (Jan., 1869), 288.
O i
This is the gist of his editorial articles in
1868.
23"The Transition of Power," 9 (April 1, 1868),
374-96.
1801
And Harrison was right. Dissatisfaction with Gladstone*s
legislation— which Disraeli seized upon--appeared long
before the former lost office in 1874. But the critical
area was in industry, not politics. There organized work
men pitted their strength and hope for a better lot. It
was there that the governing classes anxiously looked for
their judgments of the working class electorate.
Perhaps the most constructive force behind the drive
for reform, at least after 1867, came from the growth of
trade unions. Before the late 1880’s they represented only
a minority of the total working class— perhaps 10 per cent
by 1885--though their influence went far beyond their
numbers. Throughout this period between the second and
third reform bills their leaders looked to industrial
rather than political action to achieve their goals. "That
some other agency such as parliament might be used as an
intermediary between employer and employee was not accepted
as a practical proposal." They aimed at helping the
worker to help himself and were essentially middle class in
outlook, giving their votes to Liberals in the elections of
1868 and bargaining with the Tories. It was not until
after the period under study that a new kind of unionism
^J. H. S. Reid, The Origins of the British Labour
Party (University of Minnesota, 1955), p. 17^
181
appeared which was strongly influenced by socialism and
sought to capture the State. Had these "new unions"
appeared earlier, in the wake of the first extension of
political power to the laboring man, the transition to
democracy might well have been a far more difficult pro
cess.
On the eve of the second Reform Bill, a crisis had
occurred in unionism that highlighted the importance of
these organizations for the future society. Violence had
once again broken out in the union activities of the
Sheffield Sawgrinders. Terror and intimidation, even
murder in fact, had been rife there since at least 1859.
By 1866 public opinion had risen to heights of hostility
and fear, and Punch ran ghastly cartoons of murderous look
ing union men. Most felt confirmed in their beliefs that
unions were pernicious at best, criminal at worst. On top
of this, in the following year a decision of the Court of
Queen's Bench (Hornby v. Close) declared that although
trade unions were not forbidden they were still organs "in
restraint of trade" and so could not protect their funds
even by registering as friendly societies. By implication,
unions had no legal existence. It will be remembered too
that they had been under a legal cloud since 1825, when the
right of collective bargaining had been permitted, but no
clearcut coverage of the rights to hold property and
182 1
enforce agreements had been made and such terms as "vio
lence," "obstruction," "molestation" had been left unde
fined. The events of 1866-67 thus clearly challenged
unionism.
In 1867 a Royal Commission was set up to inquire
into the state of trade unionism. J. A. Roebuck was the
most hostile, anti-union member, but the group included
such prominent labor figures as George Odger, William
Allen, and Robert Applegarth, while Thomas Hughes and
Frederic Harrison were distinctly pro-union sympathizers.
The Majority Report, which was perhaps more important as a
mark of the closing age, noted the rise of class antagonism
and the waning of the old "sentiment" between employer and
employee that existed when the former was regarded as the
"governing class." It observed that., according to the
employers, workmen were losing their sense of responsi
bility, their self-help spirit, and that there was too much
evidence of a majority in unions tyrannizing over minority
dissidents with means that ranged from stealing tools to
arson and terror. The Report could find no positive evi
dence, however, that- trade unions had the effect of
restricting the development of trade by causing a rise of
prices or diversion of trade within or outside the country.
It condemned the violence it found, but recognized the
responsible outlook of the larger unions where fewer and
97
less violent strikes occurred. It agreed with the Report
of the Minority which observed:
In proportion as the unions acquire extent in area,
regularity and publicity in their transactions,
and become properly constituted associations, they
gain in character and usefulness. In proportion
as they are irregular in organization, and approach
the form of the old secret trades union, without
"benefits," they preserve some criminal features of
the surreptitious unions under the old law.28
This was the view that served as the basis of Gladstone's
two labor measures: the Trade Union Act of 1871 which
strengthened the legal status and protected the funds of
unions, but which was undercut at the same time by the
Criminal Law Amendment Act of the same year which defined
obstruction and intimidation so loosely as to make any
strike action hazardous. Labor, disappointed, was left
with a political purpose that was to be felt in the Liberal
defeat of 1874.
In the years between 1867-77 the hostility of public
opinion to unions slowly abated so that at the end of this
period if conservatives could not embrace unionism they
could at least accept and even approve of legislation and
social reform in its favor. It was soon seen that the
unions were not all of the "hole-in-comer" Sheffield Saw-
grinder type. How important opinion was, particularly this
^ English Historical Documents. XII, 1000-08.
^Quoted in Briggs, Victorian People, p. 189.
more tolerant change, A. V. Dicey revealed in a Fortnightly;
article. The basis of law, as it was then interpreted, he
said, was public opinion. Unfortunately this fluctuated
and was dangerous:
Public opinion may encourage, instead of checking,
the severe administration of the law. In this
case the law of conspiracy will almost imper
ceptibly impose restraints on the action of any
pens not to approve. . . .
How grotesque such vague boundaries to liberty could become
Dicey illustrated by a case involving strikers. Since the
law sided with individuals against individuals acting in
combination, and since public opinion had become roused by
the Sheffield strikers, the decision was rendered against a
picket on the grounds that he had "intimidated" a non-union
man by "black looks." It was important that people under
stood this, said Dicey, at a time when there was a constant
tendency for conflicts to arise between social and indi
vidual rights.
The law considers each man, when acting alone and
in his individual capacity, to have a right to pur
sue almost any course of action which is not di
rectly in violation of the law; and, moreover, the
law is always prepared, when the rights of indi
viduals, acting singly, come into conflict with the
rights of persons acting in combination, to sacri
fice the right of combination to the right of
individual liberty.
association which public hap-
^"The Legal Boundaries of Liberty," 9 (Jan. 1,
1868), 13.
30Ibid., p. 7.
185!
In short, unions and social reform could look for rough
passage under these conditions, just as they did in the
"golden ’twenties" in the United States.
Opinion on trade unions tended to range around the
31
fundamental question that still divides men in their
appraisal of these organizations: the element of coercion
employed, or, the use and abuse of power and what that
implies for political as well as economic life in a democ
racy. Viewed from the older basis that emphasized personal
liberty, the use of power appeared excessive and sometimes
irresponsible; viewed from the position that has emphasized
collective economic security, it was necessary and worth
the loss of individual freedom. The position of the Fort
nightly was clear from the beginning of the union crisis:
let us hear them out, said Morley, and try to understand
them before we condemn them. Indeed, the Review began its
life with a stirring defense of unions. Frederic Harrison,
in the first issue, pointed out that the convulsions of
capital and labor had been growing more frequent and omi
nous, that they were becoming "wars of classes for rights,
institutions, and power, . . . the true public questions of
Hjitness the plea of President Eisenhower in
August, 1959, for a labor bill that would prevent such
irresponsible union tactics as "secondary boycotting" and
coercion of non-union men.
186
32
the day." Aptly quoting Adam Smith, he reminded the
employer of what was often glossed over in that author,
that since no one objected to combinations of capital to
beat down wages and raise prices, why should objection be
raised to combinations of labor. The strict laissez-faire
position was no longer tenable; to look upon the "laws" of
political economy as infallible was to imply that they were
beyond human control. Mill had refuted that. Wherever
motives and morals enter, the "fixed" system fails. And as
for violence, one could find it on the employer's side too
as witnessed by the lock-out then going on in the Iron
Masters' trade. There was no evidence of breaking the law
on the part of the iron puddlers' trade union, but terror
ism and aggression characterized the attempt of the em
ployers to break the union.
Harrison's argument was lost, however, on the Iron
Master, who replied to him in the Fortnightly. Such com
binations, the Master replied, had only been resorted to as
a defensive measure on the part of the employers in their
struggle against the workers, who had become infected with
the foolish notion that in combination they could raise
wages. They could not; wages and prices-were governed by
"iron laws." At bottom, however, said the Iron Master, all
■^"The Iron-Masters' Trade Union," 1 (May, 1865), 96.
187
the industrial troubles were really due to "Red" organ
izers. A union was an "irresponsible body of men, sitting
with closed doors, who could no more be approached to
reason with than the secret committees of a Red Republican
33
revolt." These were the men who had infected others with
their own poison. That they were able to do so was because
of unequal education. When ignorance was more prevalent,
the men had been much easier to deal with. Now, the few
educated workmen provided the group who organized unions
and who were "ready booted and spurred to ride the working
classes to death, in a match with the masters about wages."
Harrison answered that it was true that union
leaders were "for the most part quite superior to the ma
jority of their fellow workmen in intelligence and modera-
r \ J
tion." But the effect was an education for self-
government. The leaders were responsible men, duly elected,
and should be treated with consideration and courtesy.
"The fiction that they are self-elected is one which it
would not be worth alluding to, if it had not been seriously
repeated in the Edinburgh Review." Thus to speak of unions
as "organized tyranny" was foolish. "There is no political
^"An Iron-Master's View of Strikes," 1 (n.d.,
1865), 748.
•^"The Good and Evil of Trade-Unionism," 3 (Nov. 15,
1865), 37.
188
institution in this country which carries self-government
to anything like the same pitch. . . . It is a system
which has already given the whole class a very high degree
of political education." Moreover, the facts did not sup
port the rigid laissez-faire view of combinations and
wages; strikes had been successful in gaining higher wages,
and in the contest there was no equality between the worker
and capital without the former's combination. In actual
practice, capital tended toward consolidation, while the
workers competed among themselves for jobs. By uniting
they could prevent their labor, which was all they had,
from being treated like a commodity. As Professor Beesly,
the co-worker of Harrison, put it: in all union arrange
ments for maintaining employment and for the relief of the
unemployed,
the despised and ignorant workman, the drunken
venal being known to Mr. Lowe, has . . . been
obliged to take the supervision of industry on a
large scale into his own hands, and to do for the
capitalists what they are too selfish and mutually
distrustful to do for themselves.3->
Remove the aura of conspiracy,. said Harrison. Rightly or
wrongly, unionism was the most powerful force in the in
dustrial system; and the "whole political, practical, and
organizing energies of the working class are thrown into
it."
35
"The Amalgamated Society of Carpenters," 7
(Mar. 1, 1867), 324.
189!
The Edinburgh thought Harrison fair and applauded
his position on the Royal Commission, but it was not easily i
swayed. At first it was horrified and outraged by the
evidence revealed to the Commission. It was shocking to
i
discover the extent to which trade unions were able to
coerce their fellow workers and dictate to the employers on
minimum wages, hours of labor, the prohibition of piece
work, the strict confinement of workers to a specific divi
sion of labor, limitations on the speed and efficiency of
workers, and the exclusion of non-union men from work.
Trade unions were nothing more than "self-constituted
despotisms." If England did not want to see her prosperity
dry up, she must "grapple firmly and fearlessly, as in a
9/:
struggle for life or death" with them. In spite of what
Harrison said, these unions were to be condemned on the
grounds of "Political Economy" alone. The Edinburgh, how
ever, took a modified laissez-faire view. The State did
have a right to intervene to restrict cupidity and selfish
ness as it had in the Factory Acts; for "the principles of
human nature if left unchecked do not . . . tend to promote
the well-being of all." And the trade unions should have
the right to limit hours of work in factories, they should
have the right of combination and even the right to strike.
36"Trades* Unions," 126 (Oct., 1867), 457.
190!
i
But they did not have the right to interfere with non-union!
men who disagreed nor the right to intimidate employers.
These actions clearly violated "Political Economy." Fur
ther, the equalitarian drive of the trade unions, the
levelling of the amount of work performed by the worker
down to an average, was a crowning absurdity. And lastly,
unions were to be indicted on the charge of promoting class
war; they were obliterating the common interests of em
ployer and employee.
When the Royal Commission's Minority Report of
Harrison and Hughes appeared, the Edinburgh was relieved
and praised the work. It was an "elaborate and skilful
37
performance." It had shown the growth of responsibility
among unions; the Sheffield workmen were the exceptions.
Frowned on and suspected by society, the unions had
naturally developed some qualities of the outlaw. Now was
the time to reverse that policy, to invest the unions with
dignity and self-respect.
In a word, the true cure for the vices and dangers
of Trades' Unions is to be found in the free action
of public opinion, the sense of responsibility to
law, the possession of an honourable status, and
the pride of a well and honestly exercised power.38
The Edinburgh had begun to come round; but the crusty old
Quarterly remained adamant.
■^"Thornton on Labour," 130 (Oct., 1869), 396.
38Ibid.. p. 399.
It recognized that the issue of trade unionism was
the most important issue of the day. But if there was any
question on which the Quarterly seemed to lose its balance,
it was the labor question. Being on the defensive in an
era of rising working class power, and stressing principles
(consistent with its paternalistic outlook) rather than the
cautious empiricism of the Edinburgh, it tended to over
shoot the mark and often extended its sound ideas to un
tenable extremes. Thus it tended toward a rigid, doctrin
aire laissez-faire position (revealing, by the way, that
orthodox classical economics had already become conserva
tive— not liberal--by 1870). Socialism, as we shall see
later, the Quarterly simply equated with Communism, even
after Marx's work had been translated and its doctrines
spread by Henry Hyndman. It very early saw unions cor
rupted by the Internationale.
Not surprisingly then, the Review believed the
Sheffield pattern of violence to be extended on a far wider
plain than the Fortnightly and Edinburgh did. The
Quarterly admitted that the Sheffield sawgrinders were
probably the worst of the lot and that there was a gulf
between them and Applegarth's Carpenters union. "But they
all contain within them the germs and elements of crime,
they are all founded on the right of the majority to coerce
the minority, on the absolute subjugation of the one to
193
authority" will be loosed upon society. If the laws I
i
against them are relaxed,
the next step will naturally be a demand for legis
lation for the purpose of giving effect to Unionist
projects of social reform. A law for shortening
the hours of labor has already been proposed; and
other measures would quickly follow for artifi
cially limiting the supply of labour by similar
means. . . . It is impossible to imagine a more
fatal blow at personal liberty and social order
than would be involved in a surrender to the pres
ent agitation, the object of which is simply to
increase the arbitrary authority of the Trades
Unions in order that they may be enabled to extend
and consolidate their despotism over the com
munity.^
Unfortunately for the old Review, a new age was upon it;
what a Conservative government had already done to en
courage this in the political arena, it was about to extend
in the social and economic.
The Liberal party's adjustment to the age of democ
racy, starting with such high promise, had ended in dis
illusionment. Gladstone's social reforms had been what one
might expect from an orthodox finance minister, they were
not democratic--he was an "inegalitarian" he told Ruskin,
not one of those who believed in the equality of all men.
Thus long before the end of his administration, labor had
turned cool and Radicals had become restless. "Government,
Parliament, and the upper classes have been basely
^"The Despotism of the Future," 136 (Jan., 1874),
200.
194!
ungrateful" to the workers, a Fortnightly author had told
43
the Trades Union Congress at Leeds. Gladstone's Criminal;
Law Amendment Act put too much faith in the power of the
courts to interpret the law justly. The Master and
Servants Act still left the worker and employer on an un
equal footing with the former still liable to be imprisoned
for breach of contract. The two measures, in brief, aimed
at the oppression of the worker. Gladstone, said Morley,
had better concern himself more with legislation on behalf
of the worker than with foolishly attacking Strauss'
irreligion.^
Meanwhile, Disraeli had emerged to make capital out
of Gladstone's difficulties with his own following. In an
important speech at Manchester in 1872 he offered a new
policy that would help sweep him into office two years
later and bear fruit the year following in some of the most
important domestic legislation of the century. The speech
and the measures were to mark the end of the laissez-faire
state. Disraeli charged Gladstone and his supporters with
having a program that rested on spoliation of the church
and plundering of the landlords while ignoring the basic
43
Henry Crompton, "Class Legislation," 19 (Feb. 1,
1873), 207.
44
"The Five Gas Stokers," 19 (Jan. 1, 1873), 138-41.
39
the many. ..." Or again, "robbery, maiming and murder
are the weapons with which Trade Unions enlist their mem
bers, and the agencies by which they control them."^®
Unions were illegal and ought to stay illegal--that was
evident. Moreover, on the fundamental ground of laissez-
faire economics they were a colossal blunder. They were
monopolistic by narrowing competition between workmen them
selves and between the workers and their employers. The
only way that wages could rise was for profit to capital
to increase and to have more employers enter the field.
Trade unions assuredly threatened to return England to the
monopolistic, protective days that existed before the Corn
Laws were repealed. By 1874, on the eve of the Conserva
tive emancipation of organized workingmen, the Quarterly
remained violently opposed to such effort. Labor demanded
the repeal of Gladstone's Criminal Law Amendment Act and
the freeing of unions from legal restrictions. But if the
/ 1
law is relaxed, said the Review, then through their
common practice of "rattening" (stealing a worker's tools
so that he could not work) and picketing, the "general
system of terrorism by which they seek to enforce their
39"Trade Unions," 123 (Oct., 1867), 379.
^"Reform Essays," 123 (July, 1867), 270.
41
"The Despotism of the Future," 136 (Jan., 1874),
186.
needs of the worker. Conservatives offered a program that
would maintain the constitution, not wreck it, and at the
same time meet the requirements of the new society. One of
the most important proposals Disraeli made drew attention
to the need for sanitary legislation. He could not stress
too strongly, he said, the importance of the Legislature
and society uniting to attain results.
A great scholar and a great wit, 300 years ago,
said that, in his opinion, there was a great mis
take in the Vulgate . . . and that, instead of
saying "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity"--
Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas--the wise and
witty king really said, Sanitas sanitatum, omnia
sanitas. Gentlemen it is impossible to overrate
the importance of the subject. After all, the
first consideration of a Minister should be the
health of the people.
In the following year (1873) the newly elected Radi
cal Mayor of Birmingham, Joseph Chamberlain, proceeded to
give point to Disraeli's charge that Liberals had neglected
some of the fundamental aspects of social reform. Ignorance
and unsanitary housing were the two great evils of the
day, said Chamberlain. Free, national education was for
Moneypenny and Buckle, Life of Disraeli, 1868-76
vol., p. 190. The reader will recall that in a similar
fashion--even as the laissez faire state was about to
expire in favor of the interventionist in America--Franklin
D. Roosevelt laid down his basic approach to social legis
lation in the following words: "It is the duty of the State
to concern itself with the health, welfare and general edu
cation of the people of the state." (The Public Papers and
Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Samuel I. Rosenman
collator, 1928 vol., p. 38.)
...................... 196
I
i
Parliament to deal with (he bitterly criticized Forster's
bill); sanitation was for the municipalities. The Birming
ham corporation then embarked on its program of "municipal
socialism" purchasing a gas-works, water works and sewage
farms, destroying slums, and providing artisan's dwellings.!
Returned to office in 1874, Disraeli proceeded in
the following year to carry out his earlier promise and to
extend the role of the socializing, interventionist govern
ment to the national level. An Employer and Workmen Act
provided equality before the law, the Criminal Law Amend
ment Act was repealed and the Conspiracy and Protection of
Property Act restored the right of peaceful picketing; an
Artisans' Dwelling Act attempted to remedy the housing of
the poor, while a Public Health Act, and Sale of Food and
Drugs Act filled out the social reform of that "wonderful
year." Thus was labor pacified, its needs met. "It might
fairly be questioned," said G. M. Young, "whether any
measures ever placed on the Statute book have done more for
the real contentment of the people than the Employers and
Workmen Act and the Protection of Property Act, both of
1875, and the consolidation of the Factory Acts in 1878."^
The intuitive old "Sphinx" had once again bested Gladstone
in his grasp and understanding of the rising democratic
^^Victorian England, p. 186.
197!
i
I
society. Disraeli’s Conservative Democracy had long sought;
to capture and retain something of the old paternalistic
society that had been carried by many if.not most of the
laborers into the rising industrial world. Many of the
employers had attempted to preserve it too. But it had not
been enough--the Royal Commission’s facts had revealed
that--therefore, the worker had turned increasingly to
unionism for protection. It was to the credit of Disraeli
that he had recognized that the old order of patriarchal
relations was passing.
No doubt Disraeli was not alone in thus correctly
gauging the pulse of the nation, for there had been little
opposition or controversy. The Fortnightly was, of course,
highly pleased. Secretary Cross’s labor legislation had
dispelled the worker’s fears that he could not get social
justice through the governmentthe measures marked "the
close of a long and memorable chapter in the history of
labour.
More important, however, as a measure of the times,
was the fact that the Quarterly highly praised Disraeli’s
legislation. That the Review should be pleased with the
social welfare portions was not surprising because it had
^Henry Crompton, "The Workmen's Victory," 24
(Sept. 1, 1875), 551.
48
W. A. Hunter, "Mr. Cross’s Labour Bills," 24
(Aug. 1, 1875), 217.
long pointed out the need for reform in that area. That
kind of measure was in keeping with its paternalism.
Government, it was pleased to note, had come into the hands
of men who held that:
the first and foremost duty of Government is to
secure the social welfare of the people, and that
statesmen can afford to despise democratic agita
tors, if the comfort and happiness of the mass of
the population . . . is adequately attended to.
Bismarck was putting it in almost the same way as he
battled the socialists, perhaps only a bit more gruffly.
But the labor legislation was different. The "chorus of
approval" that followed these measures required some ex
planation when only a year or more before the Review had so
adamantly demanded holding the line against any concessions
to the unions. The answer it offered was that behind all
this legislation it claimed to see the "proper application"
of the "principle of compulsion." Indeed, it said, the
opportunity to reconsider the whole principle had been per
haps one of the most notable aspects of the session. Dis
raeli had avoided the Liberals' tendency to excessive
meddling and coercion in local interests. He had "felt his
way," mindful of the wide range of customs and interests,
particularly of the local governments. In short, viewing
the situation somewhat like a staunch Republican faced with
49
"The Conservative Government," 139 (Oct., 1875),
551.
impressed Gladstone during the American Civil War, de
scribed him as having "very little of that shocking mental
stupor and grovelling inertia so observable in the rural
labourer.""*® City workers, despite their years of servi
tude in the mills, were much more alert. And after they
had been given the vote, the Edinburgh compared this
"spoiled child of the political family" to the agricultural
labourer. The latter's lot was probably the worst in all
England, it said. They had barely enough to live on with
only the Poor Rate to look forward to in old age. Nothing
but dull, brutish toil and pauperism awaited them. The
most hopeful offering the Review could make was to en
courage the development of a system of transporting the
farm labourer to areas where a shortage of labour existed.
This, of course, was to be done by individual effort or by
51
associations— not by State aid. Even in 1872 when
Sir George Trevelyan made the first of what was to become
a regular motion to extend the franchise to the counties,
the Radical Fortnightly could still talk of the "gross
ignorance of the majority" of farm workers, their almost
"unbelievable stupidity" at times, and recommend education
-*®W. A. Abram, "Social and Political Prospects of
the Lancashire Workmen," 10 (Oct. 1, 1868), 432.
"*^"The Agricultural Labourers of England," 128
(Oct., 1868), 489-523.
2011
and birth control as the best prescription for their condi-i
tion.52
Thus the Quarterly could pronounce in 1873 that
there was "no great political future for the County Fran
co
chise." J Radicals might press for it, but moderate
Liberals were reluctant to support them. Certainly Con
servatives "will never be brought into line again upon a
franchise question" after the duplicity of 1867. Besides,
the further down one went into the depths of rural society,
the more conservative the strata became. When Gladstone,
in that same year, "so far deviated from his usual cautious
practise as to express a strong leaning in favour of the
54
extension of the county franchise," he was careful to
hedge this with the statement that it was only a personal
opinion. Whereupon the Edinburgh accused him of straying
from Whig principles and of provoking a conservative
reaction. *
The year 1874 is described by the Poor Law Report
52
William E. Bear, "The Strike of the Farm Labour
ers," 18 (July 1, 1872), 76-88.
■^"The Programme of the Radicals," 135 (Oct., 1873),
559.
■^Joseph Chamberlain, "The Liberal Party and Its
Leaders," Fortnightly. 20 (Sept. 1, 1873), 293.
-^"The Past and Future of the Whig Party," 139
(April, 1873), 544-73.
1991
i
the governmental intervention of President Hoover in the
depression, the Quarterly could hold that Disraeli had j
avoided excessive centralization and looked to local inter
ests for the interpretation and application of the laws.
The uncharitable might say that the Review was rational
izing, of course. And when Disraeli talked about the
assistance of the State in erecting workers’ houses, the
Quarterly characteristically became wary and called on him
to be cautious.
The changing attitudes toward the use of the State
and the working classes that have been described so far was
revealed in yet another area. It was in this period
between 1872 and 1877, from Disraeli's announcement of a
new conservative program to his execution of it, that the
idea of reform of Parliament was once again taken up. Few
had thought the bill of 1867 was a permanent solution;
Disraeli himself had long before proposed "to recognize the
principle of identity of suffrage between counties and
towns." But before this could take place there had to be
a new appraisal of the rural working classes to whom the
next extension of the franchise would be made.
At the time of the second Reform Bill, the thought
of giving them the vote had appalled all but the most
doctrinaire democrat. The Fortnightly, commenting on the
ambitious, responsible Lancashire cotton worker who had
of 1909 as the "highest point of prosperity" in the 1870's. ;
In fact, however, a depression had already begun in agri
culture and the long winter of its decline commenced. As
the plight of farm life worsened, there came a new sympathy
for its problems. There came a new readiness to employ j
the power of the State. There also came a new antagonism
between the classes; and as the old patriarchal society
began to wane, even as it had in the urban areas, trade
unionism began to spread among the ^tabouring classes, and
a democratic spirit was fostered "such as never before had
C f .
invaded rural districts." Perhaps the most famous of the
rural trade unionists was Joseph Arch, whose National Agri
cultural Labourer's Union began a long strike in 1872.
Though his union was eventually to fall a casualty to the
depression, its attempts to raise wages, shorten hours, and
generally raise the living standard of the farm workers did
draw attention to the farm problem. It also drew attention
to the moderation and long suffering quality of the men
involved. Arch himself testified before a Royal Commission
on Agriculture in 1882 that he looked upon a strike only as
the last resort.
Thus in 1874 a writer in the Fortnightly congratu
lated the Agricultural Union on its rapid rise and particu
larly on its moderation. It might lose in the present
Sfi
Rose, The Rise of Democracy, p. 196.
203:
lock-out, but it would win in time and benefit both farmer ;
and laborer. The latter's grievances were intolerable;
they had tried legal and moral means to raise their stand
ard of living; they must now have the franchise to try
S7
the political. The Edinburgh and Quarterly were inclined:
to support the farmer and landowner, of course, but the
latter showed a greater understanding and sympathy for the
laborer. Arch was an impractical dreamer, it was true; but
the practical lesson to be drawn from the farmer-laborer
conflict, said the Quarterly, was that landlords must
remember:
that we live in times in which the title to all
property is jealously scrutinised, and in which the
duties which by general consent attach to property,
especially to visible and tangible property, multi
ply daily. . . . One of the duties, either of the
owners of land as owners or of the State coming to
their aid and making up for the deficiencies and
malfeasance of past generations, is to provide
dwellings, not hovels, not pigsties [for the
laborer].58
The farmer, said the Review, may have the best of the
battle at the moment, but it could not last against organ
ized labor; the battles would occur again and again.
Obstinate resistance to the fair demands of his
labourers may stimulate emigration, may introduce
the practice of cooperative farming, and, if and
■^J. C. Cox, "The Power of the Labourers," 22
(July 1, 1874), 120-30.
“ ^"East Anglia: its Strikes and Lock-Outs," 137
(Oct., 1874), 511.
204|
when the franchise is extended to the labourers,
may again make the counties the strongholds of
extreme opinions, just as they were in the days of
an un-reformed Parliament.5"
Disraeli was still educating his party--at least some of
them.
Opinion on reform was turning, though slowly. It
was in 1874, too, that Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding
Crowd was published, and in a letter to his publisher on
the illustrations he said that he hoped "the rustics, al
though quaint, may be made to appear intelligent, and not
fin
boorish at all." v -"In countless such ways there came a new
view of the rural laborer as a potential holder of politi
cal power. Still, the vote was ten years away; and one
must look beyond the story of the relationship between
government and worker for the reasons of the delay.
The Conservative government entered office in that
year, but had not the stomach for another political exten
sion of democracy. Lord Salisbury was right; they would
not soon be agreed on that matter--at least as long as he
and Disraeli were together in office. And reform was not
enough to bring the Liberals back. With their leader gone
into retirement and the party divided, there would be
•^"East Anglia: its Strikes and Lock-Outs," 137
(Oct., 1874), 512-13.
^Quoted by Florence E. Hardy, The Early Life of
Thomas Hardy: 1840-1891 (New York, 1928), p. 128.
205,
i
no "cry.” Politically speaking, exclaimed one Fortnightly j
writer, the nation "lies wrapt in a dead and heavy slumber,:
like the strong man in the lap of the harlot." As
Bagehot observed, the country was suffering from the
69 I
inertia of a happy society. No one denied the importance;
of reform, said Morley in 1876, but there was no scheme for;
/ • n
it; liberalism had become sterile. And in the following
year, when reform was adopted as a part of the official
program by Lord Hartington, the leader in Gladstone’s
absence, there was still only "languid interest" in the
debate, Morley noted. There was no reason to assume the
matter was "seriously considered by Liberal or Conservative
leaders. "^4
Even when Robert Lowe attacked Gladstone for his
support of the reform movement, there was not that old
passion that had characterized the great debates of 1865-
67. Lowe charged in the Fortnightly that:
the whole force of the movement, if movement it
can be called, is from above, and not at all from
6 X
E. J. Payne, "Parliament and Popular Government,"
24 (Aug. 1, 1875), 192-3.
6 9
"The Chances for a Long Conservative Regime in
England," Fortnightly. 30 (Dec. 1, 1878), 787-800. The
article was written in 1874 shortly before his death.
^"Home Affairs," Fortnightly, 25 (Jan. 1, 1876),
152.
64Ibid., 28 (Aug. 1, 1877), 296.
below. We are absolutely thrusting into the hands
of those whom we have determined to make our future
masters, a power they will hardly open their hands
to receive.
A ’ ’sort of fatalism seems to have taken possession of the
public mind," he lamented. "Everybody has settled that the
thing is to be." Nor was there any real fire in the
debates of the two men in the Nineteenth Century on the
question: "Is the Popular Judgement in Politics more just
than that of the Higher Orders?" Lowe took the negative,
of course, holding to his essentially Carlylean thesis that
the workers had less political intelligence, that they were
subject to greater error than the cultivated few. Glad
stone’s answer was to deny that this was the question. The
workers were not asked to govern. They were unfit for
that.
It is written in legible characters, and with a
pen of iron, on the rock of human destiny, that
within the domain of practical politics the people
must in the main be passive.®'
Even the affirmative could thus scarcely be construed as a
rousing bid for popular support.
If the debates did not blow fire in the banked coals
of the reform movement, they did emphasize once again what
65”j^r. Gladstone on Manhood Suffrage," 28 (Dec. 1,
1877), 744.
66"A New Reform Bill," 28 (Oct. 1, 1877), 439.
67July, 1878.
........................... 207
1
had long been apparent: the splintering of the Liberal |
party. The division between the Whigs and the Radical
wings was most pronounced, and the former remained in an
awkward position throughout this whole period as the dyna
mism of the party seemed to come increasingly from the
Radicals. Their interests were poles apart. The aristo
cratic old group with its landed interest struggled to
maintain a position in a party which the Radicals, with
ever increasing influence, demanded be widened at its base
by a greater appeal to the workers through social reform
using the State’s power. The division of the party was
clearly seen in the contrast between the Edinburgh and the
Fortnightly. The latter, as we have seen, offered a shower
of ideas as the organ of the Radicals. But the old Edin
burgh was on the defensive after the first flush of Glad
stone’ s victory in 1868. One of its central themes
remained an insistence that the position of the great old
Whig families be maintained, while the Fortnightly talked
of the rights of the urban masses. And when Gladstone fell
from office, in 1874, the Edinburgh claimed it was because
he had strayed from "Plain Whig Principles," he had given
ear to the Radicals. Actually, of course, Gladstone was
the despair of the Radicals, as we have already seen, with
his orthodox views on social reform. But the Edinburgh
called on him and all Liberals to resist the "wild and
visionary schemes" of the political left.^ After 1874,
the Edinburgh1 s comments on the current scene became more
and more infrequent; politics and economics occupy less
space as the Review and its interests slide into the back
ground, erupting now and then on rare occasions like one of
those old volcanoes that periodically rumble and emit smoke
but little fire.
The Third Reform movement thus began on an indiffer
ent, most un-Radical note. By 1877 there had grown a more
favourable view of the man to whom the next extension of
the franchise would go. He had carried himself with con
siderable patience and forbearance. What violence the
rural working man had displayed could be laid at the door
of radical agitators, not of the workers themselves. The
same applied to the urban worker for whom the power of the
State was being used in an ever increasing drift toward
industrial democracy. But something more was needed; for
reform was still seven years away. There would have to be
a greater demand for a democratic advance, a fresh impulse
to popular opinion; Liberals would have to give the appear
ance, if not the fact, of greater unity; and they would
have to return to office with the party leadership stirred
^®"The Past and Future of the Whig Party," 139
(April, 1874), 573.
2091
to action. To understand the delay and division, the great!
issues that perplexed the country and divided parties must ;
be examined. It is to the constitutional questions that we
must now turn.
CHAPTER VII
DEMOCRACY, PUBLIC OPINION, AND THE OLD CONSTITUTION
Opinion now is supreme.
Benjamin Disraeli
Before this brute mechanical Juggernaut [of
public opinion] the Radicals insist that the three
branches of the Legislature must prostrate them
selves in blind submission!
Quarterly Review
Much of what has been said in the previous chapter
on unionism, the use of State power, and reform was brought
into focus in 1877 by the appearance of Sir Thomas Erskine
May's Democracy in Europe: A History. Sir Thomas, Clerk of
the House of Commons (1871-76) and authority on parlia
mentary procedure, was "generally regarded as an expert on
constitutional law, an estimation shared warmly by him
self."^ Thus his word on the subject had weight and was
eagerly seized upon as a source of light for the path that
lay ahead. He announced in the preface:
I hail the development of popular power, as an
essential condition of the advancement of nations:
I am an ardent admirer of liberty,--of rational
1
Robert R. James, "Gladstone and the Greenwich
Seat," History Today (May, 1959), p. 347.
210
2 1 1
i
I
and enlightened liberty, such as most Englishmen i
approve; and I condemn any violation of its prin
ciples, whether bv a despotic king or by an ill-
ordered republic.2
He compared England to France where ' ‘democratic excesses
have discredited the cause of popular government." The j
latter's drive toward equality had checked her prosperity,
arrested the intellectual growth of the people, and de
moralized society. Happily, "the government of England is
one of the rarest ideals of a democracy, in the history of
the world. It is directed by the intelligent judgement of
the whole people.English reform had been steady and
moderate. Trade unions, it was true, remained a source of
mischief and danger; but fortunately so far they had
avoided politics. As for the future, the State must con
tinue to give "equal justice to all classes," while resist
ing any intimidation of the legislature.
The view thus offered was in keeping with the com
fortable spirit of the times. Radicals might chafe at such
a note of well-being. Mathew Arnold reviewing the work in
the Fortnightly, for example, could protest that the ine
quality of classes and property in England had had the
effect of "materializing our upper class, vulgarizing our
middle class, and brutalising our lower class. And this is
^Two vol. ed. (New York, 1889), I, viii.
O
^Democracy in Europe, II, 496.
2 1 2 j
A ■ i
to fail in civilization.” Such jarring thoughts, however,|
had little appeal for most of the governing classes. But j
more important than any criticism of Liberal optimism on j
the "condition of England" was the discussion of democracy •
that Sir Erskine's work provoked. Now that the subject of |
reform had become official, Democracy in Europe offered an j
opportunity for stock taking, a chance to review the demo
cratic movement and to make preparations for the future
extension of it. As the Edinburgh put it: most who read
the book looked for instruction on the "democracy of our
own times, that great and unruly force which is advancing
upon us in so many shapes, and of which we are all asking
whence it comes, whither it is taking us, and what are we
to do with it.""*
Surveying the movement's history with customary Whig
optimism, the Review announced that Democracy had come as
"an inevitable consequence of diffused intelligence, in
creased power of organisation, and, it is to be hoped,
increased well-being."^ There were dangers, of course. On
the one hand, chiefly derived from America, there was an
egalitarian impulse which held that "one man is as good as
^"Equality," 29 (Mar. 1, 1878), 330.
" ’"Sir Erskine May’s Democracy in Europe," 147
(April, 1878), 301.
^Ibid., p. 322.
213
another, and, as a corollary to this, the possibility that
men of high caliber might be driven from office making
political life corrupt. On the other hand, the French
experiments in democracy posed a more likely evil to be
guarded against. It could be anticipated that a dominant
majority of working class interests would seek to legislate
against property and wealth thus provoking dissension and
even ruin. Unhappily, signs of this danger, said the
Review, were already evident in England. It was true that
property had probably abused its privileges in the past,
but it was too easy to proceed further and attack ’’that
irremovable anomaly of civilised life, that some persons,
by no merit of their own, should be far better off than
others.” Discontent at such inequality had no real place
in English society; but there was clearly an antagonism
toward property as revealed by the trade unions’ attempt to
control the use of capital and regulate working conditions.
Under a more democratic constitution and with better organ
ization, trade unions might proceed to ’’prescribe terms of
labour” and pass laws that would ruin the economy. At
present, it was encouraging to know that the English worker
remained an essentially sensible fellow who was not in
clined toward this sort of thing.
In spite of this deference and moderation of the
mass of the working classes, the Edinburgh was still
214
hesitant to see an extension of political power. At bottom
it confessed it was because:
we do not trust human nature; we do not trust an
irresponsible man; we do not trust an irresponsible
clique; and we do not trust an irresponsible multi
tude. All alike will do wrong if they have the
uncontrolled power of doing it. And a democracy is
uncontrolled as no other government is. Beneath
the purest despotism or oligarch there is some form
of public opinion which is too powerful to be
wholly defied, and of which rulers must stand in
some apprehension. But democracy is that public
opinion. There is nothing beneath or beyond it;
for its corruption or injustice political machinery
supplies no check or correction. Nothing less than
the moral regeneration of the country can cure
it.7
The Review concluded by hoping that "England may hold on
safely to the course which she has always pursued, of so
enlarging the basis of political power as never to break
with the immediate past, or shake the traditionary rela-
O
tions of class to class." In brief, Whig caution, summing
up the spirit of reform in 1877, was still the best guide
for the advance toward democracy.
The Quarterly1s review of Democracy in Europe was
written by Lord Acton who, like Mill, could neither fully
support the Edinburgh1s views nor offer a comfortable solu
tion to its fears. He praised Sir Erskinefs work for its
avoidance of de Tocqueville1s gloomy views of democracy and
7,1Sir Erskine May^ Democracy in Europe," 147
(April, 1878), 326.
8Ibid., p. 333.
215!
j
its deeper insight into the connection between democracy j
t
and socialism, "the infirmity that attends mature democ
racies."^ Lord Acton agreed too that it had been the
tendency of modem progress to "elevate the masses of the
people, to increase their part in the work and the fruit of
i
!
civilisation, in comfort and education, in self-respect and!
independence, in political knowledge and power.He
liked even better the conclusion of the author "that democ
racy, like monarchy, is salutary within limits and fatal in
excess; that it is the truest friend of freedom or its most
unrelenting foe, according as it is mixed or pure."
As for the dangers of a democracy, Lord Acton
clearly saw the conflict between liberalism and democracy
and that the "one pervading evil of democracy" was the
tyranny of the majority. Federalism and the provision of
a second house were two of the best checks against this;
but the manifest danger lay in the fact that democracy had
a tendency to override all resistance sacrificing every
thing to maintain itself:
The true democratic principle, that none shall
have power over the people, is taken to mean that
none shall be able to restrain or elude its power.
The true democratic principle, that the people
^"Sir Erskine May’s Democracy in Europe," 145 (Jan..
1878), 114.
IQIbid., p. 113.
shall not be made to do what it does not like, is
taken to mean that it shall never be required to
tolerate what it does not like. The true demo
cratic principle, that every man's free will shall
be as unfettered as possible, is taken to mean
that the free will of the collective people shall
be fettered in nothing. . . . Democracy claims to
be not only supreme, without authority above, but
absolute, without independence below; to be its own
master, not a trustee. The old sovereigns of the
world are exchanged for a new one, who may be
flattered and deceived, but whom it is impossible
to corrupt or to resist, and to whom must be ren
dered the things that are Caesar's and also the
things that are God's. The enemy to be overcome is
no longer the absolutism of the State, but the
liberty of the subject. . . .
For the old notions of civil liberty and of
social order did not benefit the masses of the
people. Wealth increased, without relieving their
wants. The progress of knowledge left them in
abject ignorance. Religion flourished, but failed
to reach them. Society, whose laws were made by
the upper class alone, announced that the best
thing for the poor is not to be bom, and the next
best, to die in childhood, and suffered them to
live in misery and crime and pain. As surely as
the long reign of the rich has been employed in
promoting the accumulation of wealth, the advent of
the poor to power will be followed by schemes for
diffusing it. Seeing how little was done by the
wisdom of former times for education and public
health, for insurance, association, and savings,
for the protection of labour against the law of
self-interest, and how much has been accomplished
in this generation, there is reason in the fixed
belief that a great change was needed, and that
democracy has not striven in vain. Liberty, for
the mass, is not happiness; and institutions are
not an end but a means. The thing they seek is a
force sufficient to sweep away scruples and the
obstacle of rival interest, and, in some degree, to
better their condition. They mean that the strong
hand that heretofore has formed great States, pro
tected religions, and defended the independence of
nations, shall help them by preserving life, and
endowing it for them with some, at least, of the
things men live for. That is the notorious danger
of modem democracy. That is also its purpose and
its strength. And against this threatening power
217 j
!
the weapons that struck down other despots do not
avail. The greatest happiness principle positively
confirms it. The principle of equality, besides
being as easily applied to property as to power,
opposes the existence of persons or groups of per
sons exempt from the common law, and independent of
the common will; and the principle, that authority
is a matter of contract, may hold good against
kings, but not against the sovereign people, be
cause a contract implies two parties.11
May's book and the reviews of it were thus cautious i
yet hopeful about the democratic movement. Consistent with'
i
the spirit of the time, they looked to a controlled exten
sion of political power that could be seen as a part of
steady progress, not as a result of popular challenge or
"intimidation of the legislature." They recognized the
justice in working class demands, though the writers had
variously expressed warnings on the despotism of the
majority with its threat to liberty and property. In par
ticular, however, the reviews had pointed out to their
readers two great issues that for some time now had pro
foundly divided the governing classes of England in their
approach to democracy: the constitutional question of the
power of democratic public opinion, and the economic ques
tion of democracy's affiliation with socialism. The latterj
will be examined in the succeeding chapter; the former willj
be dealt with at this point.
■^"Sir Erskine May's Democracy in Europe," 145
(Jan., 1878), 137-8.
218
In the same year that Sir T. E. May’s work appeared,
the constitutional question of democratic opinion versus
the old aristocratic constitution was brought to the pub
lic1 s attention by the appearance of the National Federa
tion of Liberal Associations. Gladstone had approved it,
but Joseph Chamberlain was its real sponsor. In the July
issue of the Fortnightly he undertook to explain and defend
the new democratic machinery for organizing public opinion.
The Federation, he said, had been formed to give aim and
direction to the Liberal party. By the formation and ex
pression of public opinion, it was hoped that the Liberal
leaders would be encouraged to overcome their "Fabian
12
policy of inaction," to move a little more quickly and a
little farther toward reform. The extension of the vote in
1867 and the increased interest of the masses in politics
had determined that such a system be organized. Since the
workers were in a majority in the boroughs, candidates had
to have their active support. He defended the Associations
against charges that they were dictatorial in their rela
tions to the public, to candidates, and to the party. The
Birmingham Liberal Association (organized for the election
of 1868 and the model for the others in the Federation) did
not try to make opinion, but only to express it, to
j
| ^"A New Political Organization," 28 (July 1, 1877),
j 126.
219
organize it. It did not seek to crush minority opinion,
only to determine the voice of the majority. Its aim was
Hto make more real, more direct-, and more constant the
influence of the people in the management of their own
13
affairs.” The aim and the basis were democratic. Liber
als in each ward directly participated in the management
and formation of policy, and the managing committees were
elected at public meetings open to all Liberal residents.
Chamberlain was careful to say that men like Bright need
not fear their independence because of the new machinery—
but the threat was clear for future candidates: without the
support of the party and constituents, the candidate was
doomed. He protested, too, that the central federal organ
ization would not dictate to local Liberal Associations.
But he also said that from time to time representatives of
the associations would be:
suuraoned to consider the course which will be
recommended to their respective organizations. By
these means the opinions of Liberals on measures to
be supported or resisted will be readily and
authoritatively ascertained, and the whole force,
strength, and resources of the party may be concen
trated on the promotion of reforms found to be
generally desired.1^
The modem political organization had clearly emerged.
13,iThe Caucus,” Fortnightly, 30 (Nov. 1, 1878), 722.
■^"A New Political Organization,” 28 (July 1, 1877),
132.
2 2 0 |
j
Nor were Liberals the only ones to have such raa-
i
chinery. As a result of the 1868 defeat, Disraeli had
asked the young barrister Sir John Gorst to organize con
servative voters. A Central Conservative Office was set up|
in Whitehall and local associations set up throughout the
country. In time they were united into a National Union of|
Conservative and Constitutional Associations and their
reward came in the elections of 1874.
The impact of these new political machines— particu
larly the Radical inspired Liberal one--was disconcerting
to the older politician. No doubt many felt that Chamber-
lain was crowding them toward democracy when they preferred
to move at a more leisurely pace. The Times called the
Liberal Association a "caucus" implying that the corruption
in the American system was being adopted to English poli
tics. It did not like that at all. The Edinburgh, though
it wanted the Liberal party in office, was hostile. It
admitted the need for some means of "assorting the forces,"
but not along the "caucus" lines of Chamberlain's organiza
tion because this weakened the connection between the voter !
!
and his representative by interposing a third party. Fur
thermore, future members would come to consider the j
"caucus" that controlled the masses as their real constitu
ents. The system, in short, would "annihilate all inde-
I
jpendent exercise of the franchise "and relieve the voter
1 c
of the responsibility of his choice. The old Quarterly
had nothing but icy disdain for the new breed of politician
into whose hands the enlarged constituencies were falling.
They were:
wire-pullers and professional electioneers, usually
the narrowest, most undesirable, and most unscrupu
lous of politicians— men who make the canvassing,
organization, and management of voters their voca
tion; who will contract for the support of classes,
of sections and cliques; who will, by "caucuses"
and committees as it were discount and prefigure
the election.1°
Lord Bryce, writing in the Fortnightly.^ however,
defended the Birmingham Caucus. He agreed that the Ameri
can caucus system was vicious, chiefly because of the
operation of the "spoils system" whereby professional poli
ticians, who depended on patronage, dominated the nominating
system in order to protect their own interests. But the
Birmingham system could not be compared to this. It paral
leled the American practice only in that the ward meeting
was like the American primary and the council for the
constituency was like the American district nominating con
vention. As for the supposed destruction of the members*
independence, it limited his action and reminded him of
•^"The Government and the Opposition," 149 (Jan.,
1879), 262.
■^"Politics as a Profession," 126 (Jan., 1869), 285.
i ^"Some Aspects of American Public Life," 38
|(Nov. 1, 1882), 634-55.
local aims. But it was probably well that he was so
reminded, and any firm, straight-forward member could still;
resist the tyranny of a local committee. On the charge
that the caucus put the power of selecting candidates in
the hands of a body of delegates, the American experience
was more applicable. There was the danger that "Rings"
might control the primaries and the delegates, but fortu
nately the "spoils system" did not operate in England so
the evil was avoided. In short, the Birmingham caucus and
its like was a "perfectly harmless and indeed beneficial
*
institution."
Sir John Gorst, quite naturally, also saw good in
the democratization of political life by the new associ
ations. Commenting on the effects of the Corrupt Practices
1 8
Act, which sought to put a halt to bribery and extrava
gant expenses of elections, he thought that the Conserva
tive "Associations" and the Liberal "Caucuses" would be
opened to allow a wider choice by the local groups of their
own candidates. They would thus also gain greater inde
pendence from the central organization. Formerly that body;
had been chiefly concerned with getting a rich man for a j
i
constituency, one who could bear the expenses. Now by
i 1 f t
"Elections of the Future," Fortnightly, 40
| (Nov. 1, 1883), 690-99.
the limitation and publication of expenses the constituen
cies were no longer limited to a choice of men of wealth.
A rich man could spend no more than a poor man. Although
Gorst did not think there would be a sudden influx of poor,
dependent members, there would, he thought, be a tendency
to equalize the opportunity for the average man to run for
office. The increased freedom of choice and independence
that Sir John talked about, of course, did not mean less
control by the machinery. Each constituency would continue
to be guarded by an Association whose support was essen
tial, which curbed party leaders, and which compelled
fidelity to principles and policy.
If there was any doubt about the efficiency of the
new political machinery, the elections of 1880 that re
turned Gladstone to office removed the question for most.
Chamberlain maintained that his type of caucus existed in
sixty-seven parliamentary boroughs and that Liberals gained
seats in sixty of them. Morley hailed it as an example
of good democratic politics, asserting that the system
deepened interest in elections and secured the support of
thousands of workers. The old Quarterly, of course, con
tinued to hold after the defeat that the system was shut
ting out from office men of high, independent character;
■^"Home and Foreign Affairs,” Fortnightly, 33
{May 1, 1880), 736.
2241
but it ruefully admitted that the machine did "roll up"
20 1
large party majorities. "Lilce every American invention--;
like the reaping machines or the sewing machine--it largely,
or altogether supersedes old-fashioned contrivances." One
could object to the caucus but not ignore it. And since
the Review did want to see Conservatives back in office !
where they might more effectively control the democratic
movement, it called on them to dust off the cob-webs that
were gathering in the offices of their Associations.
The machinery of democratic politics was here to
stay even though it posed a paradox. It was magnifying the
role of the political party, centralizing its direction and
the selection of candidates, while limiting the entrance of
independent candidates and decreasing the independence of
voters as well as candidates. It clearly limited free,
individual choice that in theory went with a democracy.
Moreover, the caucus system had a heavy impact on Parlia
ment, for the caucus challenged that body since it decided
on party programs and the order of presentation of the
program, and it lessened Parliament’s control over minis-
i
i
ters while aiding the accession to power of men who could
command majorities in constituencies. Gladstone’s election
in 1880, for example, illustrated this. He had taken to
^"The Revolutionary Party," 151 (April, 1881),
|285-316.
the stump, breaking with etiquette and scandalizing the
queen; but his campaign was a huge success and he had been
returned on a tide of public opinion. He had gone beyond
Parliament to the people "which for the first time virtu-
21
ally chose its own premier." Thus the caucus had played
its part well, organizing popular opinion and giving it
direction and force. It was true that the system helped
widen the gaps between party leaders and rank and file fol- :
lowers and between the professionals at the top and the
massed electorate. Twentieth century England, in fact,
would be faced with the nightmare "spectacle of an effi
cient elite maintaining its authority and asserting its
will over the mass by the rationally calculated use of
22
irrational methods of persuasion" --though few people, of
course, could have foreseen this evolution of mass democ
racy. Yet some such system must inevitably have appeared
if English democracy was to have form and expression.
The caucus system, in fact, however, was only one
aspect of a larger constitutional problem which concerned
the governing classes of England throughout the period of j
this study: granted that the caucus was a legitimate demo- j
i
cratic effort to give popular opinion effective voice and j
21
Ensor, Modem England, p. 166.
i 22
Edward Hallett Carr, The New Society (London,
|1951), p. 78.
control over government; the next question was what were j
the nature and limits of that relationship. It was not a |
new question; it had been implicit from the beginnings of
the democratic movement in the 18th century. The 1867
inclusion of large numbers of workers in the electorate,
however, brought the issue into the open, for the opinion
of the majority of the citizens was now the opinion of an
urban laboring class. How much power ought that majority’s
voice to have? How direct ought the connection to be
between popular expression and governmental action? How
much freedom from what passed for the "voice of the people"
ought the more informed governmental classes to have? Were
they mere mouthpieces, or were they formulators of law and
policy? Countless such questions disturbed the thoughtful
in these years. In the debates between the second and
third extensions of political power, Radicals, of course,
tended to hold that popular opinion was sovereign and that
its control should be as direct and strong as possible. To
conservatives, popular opinion was not to be trusted with
out safeguards; and to prevent a tyranny of the majority
effective checks must be maintained. Popular opinion to
:them seemed bent on riding roughshod over old institutions
|and minorities. It had to be resisted.
In brief, two theories of the constitution were
!clashing here. The older, aristocratic idea, deriving from
Ill
the 18th century Newtonian world view, held that government
was a ’ ’ balance of interests." In theory, power was divided
between three, separate, independent parts: the Crown, the
House of Lords, and the House of Commons. Ultimately,
sovereignty resided with the people; but their will was
registered by their "free" and independent representatives
in Parliament, who spoke for their constituents as members
of classes first and as individuals second. (See above,
p. 29.) The House of Commons was thus conceived to be a
collection of the "best men" of the land representing all
interests and all classes--with none tyrannizing over the
rest--and acting as a "Great Council" to the Crown. It was
government for the people, not by the people. The newer
democratic theory that was upsetting this balance empha
sized the active sovereignty of the people, who were to be
thought of as individual citizens first and as members of
classes second. And to make Parliament more directly
expressive of their collective opinion, their representa
tives in the House of Commons were to be thought of as
"delegates" of the majority in the constituencies, the
Crown and the House of Lords were not to be able to oppose
ithis power indefinitely, and the House of Commons was con-
;ceived to be a "mirror of public opinion" registering that
;will--not a "Great Council" advising the Crown.
|
It may be remembered from an earlier chapter that
Disraeli had exclaimed: "opinion now is supreme." That had;
been the justification for his passing of the Reform Bill,
and for it he had been roundly denounced by both Gladstone j
oo
and Salisbury. Public opinion had prevailed, they said,
but the House of Commons had upset the political balance by
reaching for executive power. The democratic current had
thus been clearly recognized at the time, and men had taken
sides, aiding or resisting the wave of the future, accord
ing to their natures. The Fortnightly, of course, had
taken up the democratic cause and it was not long before
one writer put the case in its baldest terms. Public
opinion was now supreme, he said, and Parliament was simply
the vehicle of it. Parliament was subordinate to it,
ministries were subordinate to Parliament, and the throne
was subordinate to Parliament’s choice for the executive.
Therefore, it was necessary to free the channels of public
opinion and make it more directly felt. To begin with, he
proposed that the duration of the Commons life be shortened
in successive stages to perhaps a three year limit.^ Such
was the simpler approach. j
i
Thomas Hare raised deeper thought, however, when he j
; j
inadvertently brought the question of the nature of
23
See above, pp. 144-8.
^E. J. Payne, "Parliament and Popular Government,"
!24 (Aug. 1, 1875), 189-204.
229
Parliament to the attention of the Fortnightly*s readers.
Continuing to press for his scheme of proportional and
preferential representation, he urged it as a means of
gathering under one roof "the best thought and judgement of
25
mankind." This, he thought, would purify popular repre
sentation (which revealed his Victorian distrust of popular
judgement) and thwart the continued domination of the Tory
squire over the rural masses when the franchise was next
extended. Leslie Stephen, however, corrected him and in
the tradition of Bagehot gave a sharp, clear appraisal of
political life that revealed how Hare had failed to grasp
the character of the rising democratic movement. Such
doctoring or tinkering with the machinery of voting was
strictly a secondary matter, Stephen said, and probably
would not achieve its purpose. Quoting Carlyle, he asked:
If of ten men nine are recognizable fools, which
is a common calculation . . . how in the name of
wonder will you ever get a ballot box to grind you
out a wisdom from the votes of these ten men?
. . . Not by any method under heaven, except by
suppressing and in some good way reducing to zero
nine of those votes, can wisdom ever issue from
your ten.26
Therefore "parliament . . . cannot at once be an accurate
mirror of public opinion and a collection of the wisest
25
i "A Note on Representative Government," Fort-
;nightly. 24 (July 1, 1875), 107.
| ^"The Value of Political Machinery," Fortnightly,
124 (Dec. 1, 1875), 836.
230
men." Such surface changes in the machinery of the consti
tution that Hare advocated, in any event, had value only
when they recognized the complexity of society and the
"focus of cohesion by which its constituent elements are
bound together." Society grew according to organic laws
and these had to be recognized.
It is to the hold of the abler thinkers upon the
imaginations and intellects of the great mass of
men, and not to any device for distributing the
votes . . . that we must really look for the
security of the social order. Men are really held
together by their instincts and beliefs, not by
the external configuration of their ostensible
constitution.27
The old doctrine which lay at the base of Hare's
scheme— that Parliament was "the great council of the
nation" giving form to national sentiment--was no longer
valid. It was being undermined, said Stephen, by the fact
that opinion was really formed outside.
The discussion of questions goes on, not in
St. Stephen's now, but from Dan to Beersheba by
able editors and articulate speaking creatures
that can get others to listen to them. . . .
Not the discussion of questions, but only the
ultimate voting of them . . . requires to go on
or can suitably go on in Parliament now.28
Thus it was not a question of whether the House of Commons
should represent every shade of opinion but whether it was
27
"The Value of Political Machinery," Fortnightly,
24 (Dec. 1, 1875), 846.
28Ibid., p. 847.
231
to be heard in a particular way. Mr. Mill, thoughT he had
been briefly in office, was really more influential as a
writer outside than as a participant in "petty squabbles
over details of clauses." The influence of great thinkers
that Hare wanted in Parliament could be more effectually
employed otherwise: "They should be part of the great coun
cil of the nation which holds its debates in the press, and
not put upon that committee for registering its edicts
which meets at W e s t m i n s t e r . " ^ Moreover, even if Hare’s
scheme did help to admit a few able men to Parliament, it
would not cure a "great and growing evil" associated with
the growth of democracy: "a growing disposition of the
masses to deny a voice in public affairs to all who do not
30
echo their own sentiments." The correction must still
lie in the moral and intellectual influence of the creative
minority on public opinion outside Parliament. "The ulti
mate questions are whether the nation at large is capable
of recognizing its best men and setting a true value upon
the highest elements of political life." If it does,
Parliament will be adequate; if it does not, "constitution !
mongering" would not help.
No doubt Stephen was thinking of responsible
QQ
"The Value of Political Machinery," Fortnightly,
;24 (Dec. 1, 1875), 848.
3QIbid.. p. 851.
232
journalism when he spoke of a "great council" of letters;
but unfortunately that was giving way even then to the age
of "yellow journalism." He made no reference to it; nor
did he note John Morley's comment on the press— which
revealed the undemocratic aspect to his mind, by the way—
that the daily newspaper had become a "huge engine for
keeping discussion on a low level," while the spate of
journals only sought "to make vulgar ways of looking at
things and speaking of them stronger and stronger, by
formulating and repeating and strengthening them inces-
31
santly." Mass democracy was not far off.
The Quarterly, though it was not in sympathy with
the rising force of public opinion, had quickly recognized
it. Like Stephen, it saw that Parliament:
has become rather a Court where the decrees of the
nation are registered and reduced to shape, than
where they are originated and concocted. It re
flects and ventilates the national conceptions,
and desires, and volitions; it never creates them,
it seldom guides or controls them; it only par
tially and occasionally modifies them.^
In order to carry a measure, ministers had now to have
pressure from outside Parliament. This public opinion
On Compromise," Fortnightly, 21 (April 1, 1874),
436.
3^"Politics as a Profession," 126 (Jan., 1869), 279-
i 80.
I
33
I JJAn experience of Lord Wedgwood on his arrival as a
member of Parliament illustrates this trend: "The enthusi
astic arrive, bursting with energy, and the cold tap of
reality chills their heart. 'What can we do if we have no
233 i
.___ I
that was required for support, however, was far more in
fluenced by the Press than it was by members in Parliament.
The Press, in short, speaking for opinion, forced Parlia
ment to take up a question and then enabled it to settle
the question.
In the vein that Stephen had touched on when he
spoke of the masses demanding that their representatives
"echo their sentiments," the Quarterly charged that because
of this not only was Parliament losing its power but its
composition was also degenerating under the impact of
Q /
democracy. Political life, said the Review with cool
hauteur, was becoming less pure and lofty and so proving
less attractive to the "best men." The aristocracy and
squirearchy could be expected to continue to send their
representatives, and the "mercenary band of guerrillas" who
represented the railways and managers of great companies
could be counted on to appear along with the spokesmen of
the nouveaux riches who were "at least as undesirable."
But the young men of clear intellect, high purpose and
j ~
chance to bring in Bills or move resolutions?' I once said
in despair to John Morley. 'The function of the private
I member,' coldly replied the sage, 'is to popularize in the
I country the policy of his Party." Recounted by D. W.
I Brogan, The English People: Impressions and Observations
|(New York, 1948), n. p. 124.
i ^"Politics as a Profession," 126 (Jan., 1869),
1276-85.
234
independent minds, found it harder and were more repulsed
by the requirements of truckling to the popular tastes of
their constituents. Budding statesmen shrank from the idea
of becoming mere delegates--"and delegation is more and
more growing the favourite conception of representation
among popular constituencies." Even worse was the fact
that political affairs were falling into the hands of
"wire-pullers" and "caucuses." And these with their party
system were encroaching not only on the power of Parliament
but on the power of the Crown. Gladstone could talk of the
sovereignty of the people and say that members of Parlia
ment were "delegated servants of the people." But the
Quarterly denied this, insisting that political leaders
were the "freely chosen servants of the monarch" who was
responsible to the whole realm, not just a majority of the
people who supposedly spoke at election time. Indeed, that
expression of the popular will was often only the opinion
of a very small minority made up of an electioneering army
trying to secure the victory of the party candidate. No,
the constitutional source of authority was "the mixed
Government of King, Lords, and Commons" with the higher
sovereignty of Public Opinion--which was only truly ex-
:pressed, however, when its representatives were free.
| -------------------
i 3 5
| "Whigs, Radicals, and Conservatives," 150 (July,
i1880), 269-304.
235
If this Opinion became identified with the ’’emotional
impulses of the masses," and if the House of Commons was
instructed and controlled by constituents, then members
were no longer "councillors of the realm" but the "depend
ent delegates of professional intriguers who understand the
art of manipulating numbers"--numbers which did not ade
quately represent society. The Sovereign, in short, was
not a "cipher" and the Ministers, responsible to Parliament,
were "Servants of the Sovereign."
Having seen the Conservatives ousted from office and
Joseph Chamberlain brought in as a member of Gladstone’s
cabinet in 1880, the old Review called once again for a
halt to the democratic revolution. ^ The issue was momen
tous: "whether the present constitution of England shall be
retained or destroyed." The Radicals had become perhaps
the strongest power in the State; Liberal influence was
crumbling; Whig influence was nearly in its grave. The
balance of power had shifted from the middle class to the
workers, whose spokesmen, stressing the sovereignty of the
people, were destroying the constitutional monarchy of
England. To counter the Radical influence, the Quarterly
'offered a Conservative Programme. The watchword was to be
i"Social Order":
, —
I . "The Revolutionary Party," 151 (April, 1881), 285-
; 316.
i
236
We are united for the maintenance of our ancient
institutions; the just prerogative of the Sover
eign; the liberties of both Houses of Parliament;
the connection of Church and State; the security
of property; the union of Mother Country and the
Colonies; in a word for all that constitutes the
"Society of the British Empire."37
To defend this, Conservatives must stress individual
liberty and self-government while admitting an extension of
the franchise, and "let us press urgently, in the interests
of the Empire, for the representation of the Colonies in
the House of Commons." The "true principle of our repre
sentative government is ’to localize whatever in our
affairs is domestic, and to centralize whatever is im-
38
perial.'" Liberalism had become conservatism with a dash
of New Imperialism. And therein lay new life for the Con
servatives.
The Whigs were not quite in their grave, where the
Quarterly seemed bent on placing them, though as we have
already seen they were expiring as a political force. The
Edinburgh, scenting reinvigorated Toryism, rose once more
39
to the defense of the constitution. The Quarterly* s new
policy for the Crown--to localize domestic interests and
■^"The Past and the Future of the Conservative
Party," 152 (Oct., 1881), 399.
38Ibid., p. 410.
I
39"The Constitution and the Crown," 148 (July,
’1878), 262-94.
2371
centralize imperial--was the "policy of the Irish Home
Rulers." Nothing could be more anathema. The Quarterly
was calling for a reversion to pre-1832 "good old days of
packed Parliaments" when the House was only a "passive
instrument of the Crown." Parliament had and would con
tinue to protect itself against any such encroachments on
its power. The first of Whig principles was still "to
maintain the authority of Parliament." This meant, on the ;
one hand, resistance to the increased democratic tendency
of trying to solve questions by appeals to popular meetings
(the Review gravely condemned the practice of carrying on
political contests out of session by appeals to public
opinion). Whigs would never accept "the modern doctrine
that legislation is to be dictated by public opinion."^
In the past, statesmen had not been bound by public clamor,
but by steady policy. On the other hand, Whigs maintained
that the minister was the organ of the House more than of
the Executive and insisted on the "absolute responsibility
of Executive Government." Indeed, if it were known "that
the policy of the country was in any sensible degree I
dictated by the Crown we do not hesitate to say that the
i
days of the monarchy would be numbered." Any tendency to
40
"The Government and the Opposition," 149 (Jan.,
1879), 255.
"exalt prerogative on the ruins of parliamentary govern
ment" must be halted; the Liberal party must rally around
the principle of the "independence of Parliament." So the
old Edinburgh droned on, already out of date. Like
Polonius, the flow of events was escaping it; it had only
safe maxims for young men on the march.
The assault of democracy on the old constitution
reached a critical stage in the attack on the House of
Lords for its resistance to the Third Reform Bill. In
1884, it became "the Question of the Hour" when the Radi
cals raised the cry of: "Mend them or end them." Demanding
freer expression and execution of the sovereign popular
will, it was almost inevitable that the democratic movement
should run full tilt against that House which checked it.
The Fortnightly had long carried on a running criti
cism. In 1871, when Cardwell's Army bill had provoked
"naked and downright conflict with the commons" (see above,
p. 162), the Review had subjected the House of Lords to
sharp attack. Harrison, Morley, and Goldwin Smith were
only some of the more well-known critics of the 1870's.
Thus it was not surprising when, in 1884, the Radical
Democrat Henry Labouchere announced in its pages that there
Iwas only one thing to be done: as the Long Parliament had
resolved long ago, "the House of Lords is useless, dangerous
239 |
/ 1
and ought to be abolished."^1 Reform, such as Bright was
suggesting when he hinted at a "suspensive veto" (similar
to that which came in 1911), was not enough. Abolish the
block to the extension of democracy, exclaimed Labouchere.
Eliminate the "five hundred landlords" who oppose democ
racy. Such language was perhaps the bluntest in the Fort
nightly, and other writers did not go as far. One, how
ever, suggested the remedy of election to the Lords^ (just j
as Lowe had foretold there would be); and another suggested
that the expedient of 1832 be followed: threaten to create
enough peers to pass the reform measure. In the midst of
this heat and passion, however, one curiously calm voice
/ ^
spoke out in the Review. He reminded the Radicals that
the peerage was the basis of England’s social organization
and that at least it was a means of ennobling men, of
channelling their ambitions, such as that of a plutocracy
seeking higher ambition. But that was an exceptional note.
How high feelings ran is suggested by Lord Randolph
Churchill’s somewhat rhetorical claim that if some com
promise were not worked out, the collision between the two i
j
41
"The Question of the Hour," 42 (Sept. 1, 1884),
331.
42
! William Rathbone, "Reform in Parliamentary Busi
ness," 36 (Oct. 1, 1881), 399-413.
^Percy Greg, "The Future of the Peerage," 42
I(Dec. 1, 1884), 728-37.
240 i
j
Houses might degenerate into a civil war.^ If he feared !
i
that, however, another member of Parliament looked forward
to such a struggle. It would only 1 1 enhance the ultimate
victory of the people”; all would then see that the House j
of the representatives of the people was "the principal
45
depository of power in the state.”
The Edinburgh, of course, deplored the clamor and
lamented the fact that party discipline within the House
along with the pressure of the caucus without was destroy
ing independence. Without independence, there was no free
dom; without governmental institutions mutually checking
and aiding one another, government would become "an in-
46
tolerable tyranny."
The Quarterly stridently rallied conservatives for
tenacious resistance. Rather than submit to the Radicals’
attempt to abolish the Lords, or at worst to make the
Commons supreme, the Review urged outright adoption of a
democracy. That would be preferable to the Radical revolu
tion which would destroy parliamentary government:
We should substitute for a polity, till lately I
the most carefully balanced and guarded among j
i
■- |
^"An Antidote to Agitation," 42 (Sept. 1, 1884),
285-91.
i
Arthur Arnold, "Parliamentary Reform," 41 (Feb. 1,
1884), 179.
; ^"The Reform Bill and the House of Lords," 160
|(Oct., 1884), 577.
241
free constitutions, a democracy the most absolute
that the world has ever seen--a democracy of the |
proletariate; a democracy without checks or guar
antees, a democracy of landless peasants and
artizans living from hand to mouth, a democracy
dependent for daily bread on weekly wages; worst
of all, a democracy with a single despotic
a s s e m b l y . i
All history was against the madness of wrecking a second
chamber. "What is the distinctive peculiarity of the modelj
Trans-Atlantic Republic, the characteristic feature of the
much admired American Constitution?" Its framers had set
up the democratic checks of a presidential veto and a con
servative Senate. Thus even the model of the Radicals was
against them. And they could not answer.
Conservative resistance, a compromise carried out by
Gladstone and Salisbury (who led the Lords), and perhaps an
instinctive drawing back from the extremities of Radical
ism, all combined to halt the democratic attack on the
upper house. The cry of "end them or mend them" was not
carried through, of course, until 1911. There is an epi
logue, too, to this story of the constitutional struggle
between the two houses of Parliament that is worth noting.
At the beginning of our period, the House of Commons was j
supreme in the British Constitution with the Cabinet pro- j
viding the link between the legislature and the executive.
I ^7"The House of Lords and the Government," 158
I(Oct., 1884), 581.
242 I
We have seen how this arrangement was challenged in the
i
1870's and 1880's. In 1956 it could be observed:
Today there are some who think that the powers of
the House of Commons have been so much reduced that
its functions are chiefly confined to the ventilla-
tion and crystallization of public opinion. The
House of Commons might now be described as being so
much reduced in status that it is in effect a link
between the Cabinet and the people, both of whose
powers have expanded considerably.^®
The democratic drive to exalt the House of Commons over the !
House of Lords had ended ironically by reducing both.
The conclusion of this chapter must say something
about America's influence on the English democratic move
ment. In all the discussion of popular opinion, the struc
ture of government, and division of powers, indeed, when
ever democracy was discussed throughout this period, the
image of America was not far in the background. In the
years immediately preceding the third Reform Bill, just as
it had on the eve of the second, discussion and reference
to it became increasingly frequent and stimulating. If the
* %
governing classes of Europe could not always love or even
respect the United States it was, and remains, a profound
influence on their affairs.^ English views of the United |
1 |
States as an example of democracy, in fact, nicely j
AO
Cecil S. Emden, The People and the Constitution.
12nd ed. (Oxford, 1956), p. 11.
49
i See the work of the French priest Bruckberger,
I Image of America. 1959.
243
illustrate what has been a central aspect of this study:
what men think are the pertinent facts, and what they think
they mean, helps shape their course of action.
The image of America remained a source of inspira
tion for Radicals from Bright to Morley. And Republicans,
of course, hailed it as a model; but the thought that that
form of government might be brought to England never gained
the serious attention of the Reviews. Much more interest
ing, however, was the revolution in conservative thought.
In 1865-67, it may be remembered, the United States served
as a warning for the Quarterly to all who contemplated the
arrival of democracy. There were very few of the evils of
democracy that the old Review did not find in the United
States. As the third Reform approached, however, by com
parison with Radical programs America became an example of
wise statesmanship, a model of the best hope that a democ
racy offered!
John Morley illustrated the Radicals’ fascination
with the American experiment when he exclaimed in relief on
turning from:
the bickering of the jealous nations of the Old
World to the spectacle which is presented to us
across the Atlantic. The Future is there, and as
we contemplate the majestic proportions of the
Great Western Republic, with its population of
fifty millions rapidly swelling to double that
total, we feel that here we have the factor that
is destined to revolutionize the world.50
^"Horne and Foreign Affairs," 36 (July, 1881), 135.
244 j
One could not watch the "vast and fertilising stream of
human life which is being emptied on the prairies of the
West" without sensing the tremendous impact of America on
Europe. "Everywhere American competition, American emigra-I
tion, or American ideas are at work disintegrating the
fabric of European society." And E. A. Freeman beheld a
similar vision when he described the history of America as:
before all things, a part of the general history of
the Teutonic race, and specially of its English
branch. Of that history the destiny, as it has al
ready been worked out, of the American commonwealth
forms no unimportant part. And their future des
tiny is undoubtedly the greatest problem in the
long story of our race.^l
One excited Fortnightly writer went so far as to tell
Englishmen that although they need not follow the American
political example, at least they would do well not to "fall
behind in that noble and confident spirit which is the
birthright of imperial races." England should look forward
to that day when the Anglo-Saxon race joined hands to en-
52
sure the "peace and progress of the world." After such
paeans to the dynamic drive of America, it was curious (but
still plausible in those days) to hear Thomas Burt, the j
Labor member of Parliament, extol democracies as essen-
!
tially pacifistic. Democracy favored arbitration, he j
-^"Some Impressions of the United States," II, 38
!(Sept. 1, 1882), 346.
!
Lepel Griffin, "The Harvest of Democracy," 41
! (Mar. 1, 1884), 401.
thought, and required "much stronger and clearer reasons
for armed intervention in the internal affairs of other
countries than have sufficed in the past." Democracies
were "never likely to be unduly influenced by mercenary
considerations. They may fight for an idea, but they will
not fight for territorial aggrandisement or commercial
53
advantages." For some, uninformed of American expan
sion, the image of the "Colossus of the North" was not yet
clearly limned; it was still possible to be enthusiastic
about the United States as a great example of free, paci
fic institutions at work. The moral for those who still
opposed democracy was clear.
Even Henry M. Hyndman, the man who in 1881 attempted
to introduce Marxism to England, had a good word for
America. In spite of her difficulties, the United States
as an "organized democracy educated by books and by public
discussion," was not quite the irrational, corrupt body
that many seemed to think her. The real source of mis
chief, of course, lay in her unregulated capitalism; but
adding it all up, the good clearly outweighed the bad.3^
Perhaps a more influential testimony as to the soundness of
American democracy came from Sir S. Laing, who confessed
53"Working Men and War," 38 (Dec. 1, 1882), 721.
■^"Lights and Shades of American Politics," Fort
nightly, 35 (Mar. 1, 1881), 340-57.
246 j
|
that he had been converted from conservatism to radicalism i
by watching the course of events in the United States. Of i
the people there, "what was said of Charles II was exactly
reversed, and although they often talked foolishly they
always acted wisely.”*^ Beneath all the ’’buncombe and
tall-talk, the final decision has been generally wise and
i
successful.”
In 1881 there appeared in England an anonymous work
that provoked considerable notice and comment. It was
called Democracy: An American Novel and because of its
crudeness was even then recognized by the three Reviews as
no very substantial effort--which in itself was a measure
of the new attitude toward the United States. But it came
at a critical time in English politics and provided a
springboard for discussions of the democratic movement.
Mrs. Humphrey Ward, who reviewed it in the Fortnightly,
observed that it was being freely quoted in denunciations
of American politics and democracy in general. But she
reminded her readers that corruption was not limited to
young republics.^ And E. A. Freeman made the same point j
1
:even more emphatically after his return from that country ;
I when he said that it was:
•^’ ’Rational Radicalism,” Fortnightly, 41 (Jan. 1,
|1884), 75.
-^’ ’ Democracy: An American Novel," 38 (July 1,
;1882), 93.
247 |
absurd to infer that a democratic or a federal form
of government has a necessary and special tendency
to corruption, when it is certain that corruption
has been and is just as rife under governments of
other kinds.57
Even the Edinburgh, which, like the Quarterly, agreed that
political life in the United States was probably "unpleas
ant," did not believe the book represented the best Ameri
cans and refrained from drawing any political implica-
C Q
tions. Lord Bryce, like Freeman, however, was not so
reluctant and summed up the case. Taking the novel as a
basis for an examination of political life in America, he
cautioned against anyone pointing in fright to the evils of
American corruption and saying: "this is what democracy
comes to," "this is what you want to bring to England with
a lowered county franchise, attacks on the House of Lords,
and the Birmingham Caucus." The book overdrew the picture,
to begin with. And while comparisons between the United
States and England could be instructive, "the chief practi
cal use of history is to prevent one from being taken in by
historical analogies.There were simply too many dif
ferences, he said. Young men with ambition and intelli
gence, for example, did not go into political life in
57
■""Some Impressions of the United States," II,
i Fortnightly. 38 (Sept. 1, 1882), 339.
58
"American Society in American Fiction," 156 (July,
|1882), 170-203.
I 59
■ "Some Aspects of American Public Life," Fort
nightly. 38 (Nov. 1, 1882), 635.
248 j
America as they did in England; they went into business.
And laissez-faire really played a part in American life
that would make even the strongest English adherents
"recoil."
Almost twenty years after the Quarterly had held up
the United States as a model of democratic despotism (see
above, p. 53), on the eve of the third Reform Bill the
position was reversed. Generally speaking, said the
Review, the difficulties of maintaining a democracy were
enormous and most had had a short life, due in large part
to the difficulty of organizing masses of opinion on legis
lation. On the whole there was only one country that had
adequately discussed and tested the most workable form of
democracy and that was America. "American experience has,
we think, shown that, by wise Constitutional provisions
thoroughly thought out beforehand, Democracy may be made
tolerable.In spite of defects pointed out by such
books as Democracy: An American Novel, the "Constitution of
the United States of America is much the most important
political instrument of modem times." In reality, of
course, it was a "modified version of the British Constitu-
!
tion" of 1760-1787 with much of its successful resistance ;
i
i
j
^"The Nature of Democracy," 158 (Oct., 1884), 325.
^"The Constitution of the United States," 157
i(Jan., 1884), 1.
249
to political disorder due to its very preservation of
British institutions--that and the sagacity of American
statesmen. In brief, it might well "fill Englishmen . . .
with wonder and envy"; America had "sustained the credit of
Republics." Before extending the franchise then, perhaps
the "most important measure passed since 1689," that
Constitution ought to be examined in close detail. The
Review concluded by contrasting the office of the Presi
dency, the Supreme Court, the Senate, and the House of
Representatives with their English counterparts, in each
case making a favourable comparison.
Though it may have startled some of its readers, the
Quarterly had not become Radical. It was more willing than
it had been twenty years earlier to accept the inevitable
advance of democracy. But, in addition, when it looked at
America its angle of vision was different from that of the
other Reviews--critical rather than admiring. It saw, and
chose to extol, what in an age of Social Security must
appear harsh, un-democratic aspects, particularly the raw
laissez-faire spirit that Lord Bryce had said would make
them "recoil." It thereby revealed what Radicals appar
ently did not want to see in our "Gilded Age" of railway
expansion and "Robber Barons"; and it revealed how much
; further along the road of the democratic welfare state
i England had gone. It also put its finger on what has
250
remained a basic issue of modem democracy: incentive.
Democracy, said the Review, was on the rise every
where. It was threatened, however, by nationalism, mili
tarism, and the appearance of "Wire-pullers." The effect
of the latter was to make all parties alike and more homo
geneous, their opinion reflecting less and less the ideas
of an individual leader and more and more those that will
"favour the greatest number of supporters." This "average
opinion" then became the basis of legislation in a democ
racy and in the end hit that dead level of the Roman
Catholic Church. The great question about democratic
legislation then was this:
How will it affect human motives? What motives
will it substitute for those now acting on man?
The motives, which at present impel mankind to the
labour and pain which produce the resuscitation of
wealth in ever-increasing quantities, are such as
infallibly to entail inequality in the distribu
tion of wealth. They are the springs of action
called into activity by the strenuous and never-
ending struggle for existence, the beneficent
private war which makes one man strive to climb on
the shoulders of another and remain there through
the law of the survival of the fittest.62
One of the best examples of this was to be seen in the
|
United States:
There has hardly ever been a community in which
the weak have been pushed so pitilessly to the '
wall, in which those who have succeeded have so
62
i "The Prospects of Popular Government,1 1 155 (April,
!1883), 574.
251
uniformly been the strong, and in which in so short
a time there has arisen so great an inequality of
private fortune and domestic luxury. And, at the
same time, there has never been a country in which,
on the whole, the persons distanced in the race
have suffered so little from their ill-success.
All the beneficent prosperity is the fruit of re
cognizing the principle of population. . . . It
all reposes on the sacredness of contract and the
stability of private property, the first the imple
ment, and the last the reward, of success in the
universal competition.
The late 19th century's gladiatorial view of life had set
in to accompany the rise of democracy, industrialism, and
mass civilization.
Between the appearance and the reviews of the two
books that mark the beginning and the end of this chapter,
between 1877 and 1882 that is, another adjustment had been
made by the governing classes of England to their demo
cratic future. A national political machinery for organ
izing the "voice of the people" had been formed and
accepted by most, as "beneficent" at best or as a necessary
evil at worst. The place of that democratic public opinion
in the constitution was not yet agreed on, but as a force
it was clearly recognized. When Gladstone, like Bright,
"went to the nation" in 1880, challenging the wealthy, the
high-born, and the Church of England and winning a resound
ing popular triumph, he not only horrified the queen and
£ L O
"The Prospects of Popular Government," 155 (April,
1883), 575.
dumbfounded Disraeli and society in general, but revealed
the new power of public opinion. Henceforth there would be
increased recognition and appeal to it. Behind this de
velopment, the image of democracy, partly by the American
example, seemed more attractive, more becoming to some.
The political revolution was being accompanied and directed
by a revolution in the minds of Englishmen. One aspect of
the story, however, remained clouded and ominous, namely,
the economic. Ultimately, the real basis of conservative
fears that we have encountered so far, their hesitation or
resistance to an extension of political power, cannot be
understood without seeing the connection between democracy
and socialism. To that issue, alluded to throughout this
study, we must now turn.
CHAPTER VIII
DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM
[This England:]
A false majority, by stealth,
Have got her fast, and sway the rod:
A headless tyrant built of wealth,
A hypocrite--a belly-God.
George Meredith
(Fortnightly Review)
In all these countries, whether through strikes
or through revolutionary outbreaks, every oppor
tunity has been used, during the last twenty years,
with unremitting vigilance, to accomplish the wild
visions of triumph over capital, upon which the
workman, undiscouraged by failure, still reso
lutely broods.
Lord Salisbury
(Quarterly Review)
The arrival of democracy is now the subject of
greatest interest to all Englishmen, said James Anthony
Froude in 1882.^ "The destinies of this great empire are
now wholly in the hands of the nation itself, and we all
collectively will have to answer to those who come after us
for the condition to which we bring it." It might therefore
1
Elected President of the Birmingham Institute,
Froude addressed it on Nov. 3, 1882, with this speech which
was reprinted in the Fortnightly, 38 (Dec. 1, 1882), 728-
42.
254!
be well to pause, he thought, and recall the experience of
the Greek and Roman experiments with democracy; they were
as valid as ever for those about to embark on that form of
government. First, there was the problem of imperialism.
A democracy ought to remember that "free nations are bound
to respect in others the rights which they claim for them
selves." Then there was the difficulty of finding the
ablest men to govern; for democracies went on the principal‘
that all men were equal, though nature had made them un
equal. The problem of change had been the reason for the
failure of many Greek democratic constitutions. When the
people came to power, they were usually in too big a hurry
to alter their laws. And "in politics, where so much
depended on custom, the changes ought to be as few as pos-
O
sible, and always to be undertaken reluctantly." But the
fundamental problem, said Froude as he interpreted
Aristotle, was this:
What is the real object of human existence? Is it
that as civilization advances men should have more
money, more luxury, more of what is called enjoy
ment? Or is it that they should become better men,
and have more of what is called virtue? They all
admit, in words, that virtue ought to be first. |
They all, in practise, put enjoyment first, and the I
freer they are the more they run after enjoyment. j
But if free government is the best form of govern
ment, it requires the best kind of men; it can only
succeed when the citizens aim consistently at high
and worthy objects. Very mean creatures can be
^Fortnightly, 38 (Dec. 1, 1882), 735.
255
governed tolerably by kings and nobles. Only those
who have a high standard of character are able to
govern themselves. Unfortunately . . . the average
of men never really recognise this, and never
really believe it. They demand freedom, but they
mean by freedom the power of doing what they like,
and of getting what they like. They will talk
finely about the beauty of goodness, but their
working faith is in the beauty Of money. Give them
money, they think, and the rest will follow of it
self.3
It was good for men to better their conditions; but the
important thing was how. If money was the end, the "how"
was ignored or passed over. All could not be rich; and in
a democracy inequality was more difficult to bear. Thus
the question inevitably entered democratic politics: "Why
should one man have so much and another so little?" The
sure road for the popular politician was to "ring the
changes on inequality."
Here, Aristotle says, in all countries where to
make money has been the first object of life, is
the Maelstrbm where free constitutions are gener
ally swallowed. It ruined Greece, it ruined Rome.
We have seen the same symptoms in Paris in our own
time, and wherever it appears it is the sign of a
coming catastrophe. Socialistic equality is pretty
and becoming in Utopia, but in this world it means
taking away from men what they have themselves
earned and giving it to others who have not earned
it. Property may seem to be distributed unfairly.
It may be often in bad hands and be badly used,
but it represents on the whole energy, industry,
and prudence.^
In sum, said Froude, do not let the making of money be your
3Fortnightlv. 38 (Dec. 1, 1882), 739.
^Ibid., p. 744.
256
first aim; do not seek empire; and do not hastily alter
the laws. But above all, be careful how you meddle with
property. If you must reform, begin at home.
James Anthony Froude had clearly put his finger on
one of the central issues of the age--and not just of
English history, as we must remind ourselves in order to
grasp the depth of the setting for the debates that follow.
For the governing classes of England, always conscious of
the pull on their country by the continent--France in par
ticular- -and by America, now saw democracy and socialism
appearing everywhere hand in hand, just as de Tocqueville,
Marx, and Mill had said they would. The groundswell of the
movement could be traced across the continent of Europe
even to far off Russia, where Fyodor Dostoevsky, soon to be
hailed as his country's prophet, four years before Froude,
made the following plea to his countrymen:
Almost the whole present-day world is conceiving
liberty in financial security and in laws guaran
teeing it: "I have money, therefore I can do what
I please; I have money, therefore I am not going
to perish and I will not solicit anyone's help,
and not to be soliciting anyone's help is the
supreme liberty.5
| The conservative Dostoevsky thought this a sham leading to
enslavement rather than to freedom and the equality toward
which it was driving only a "jealous watchfulness of one
~ * The Diary of a Writer (New York, 1949), II, 623.
257
over the other, self-conceit and envy." Before trying to
transform society with socialistic or communistic schemes
to attain this false security, he said, "before compelling
others, fulfill it yourselves--herein is the whole mystery
of the first step." Like Goethe, he had no faith in salva
tion through government.
Wherever industry and urban masses had appeared,
democracy and socialism had followed. Whenever popular
power increased, the tendency to seek security in economic
equality seemed to follow inevitably. And the knowledge
that England was subject to these scarcely understood
forces, which produced such ugly cities and jarring class
antagonisms, added to that peculiar tension which at times
reaches a note of despair in the late Victorian mind. As
the century wears on the old optimism wanes and there is an
increasingly somber view of life by men who feel that
England, once a land of free men, is being trapped "on a
darkling plain . . . where ignorant armies clash by
£
night." In brief, the transformation of society by democ
racy and socialism contributed to that poignant atmosphere
of doubt as the sea of men’s faith receded leaving the
naked shingle of determinism in the political as well as
^Mathew Arnold, "Dover Beach" (1867). The mood con
tinues in such poets as Housman and Hardy, of course, and
j is perhaps most fully captured in the Forsyte Saga.
258
the economic and spiritual realms. And this, I think, is
very important for the understanding of the story of democ-
i
racy's emergence from the liberal ideology. In the debates
of the 1870's and 1880's there is an aura of baffled re
sistance on the part of conservatives as they see their
world being swept away without quite being able to convince
themselves that it should rightly be so; there is something
not absolutely convincing in the arguments of the radicals
as they demand that the old order make way for the new.
The debates, in fact, have a not un-similar ring and tone
to those heard in America xdien President Hoover gave way in
silent bitterness to Franklin D. Roosevelt, when the old
liberalism acceded to the demands of the new collectivism.
Between 1865 and 1885 England adopted democracy and
socialized liberalism. It was in this period, as we have
already seen, that public opinion increasingly favored
intervention by the State on behalf of the masses of
people. As A. V. Dicey put it, it was the "Collectivistic
Period" of opinion that was replacing "Benthamite Indi
vidualism." The full tide of collectivism did not come, of
i
course, until the 20th century, but the 1870's were the
watershed that divided the two great 19th century streams
of liberal individualism and democratic collectivism.
Before 1865, collectivistic ideas had no real influence on
the main current of legislative opinion; such influence
| 259
|” did not become perceptible till some years later, say till
11868 or 1870, or dominant till say 1880."^ The appearance
| of Chamberlain1s Radical Program in 1883 (in the Fort
nightly Review) and the formation of Socialist parties
between 1881 and 1883 mark the new age.
Much of this story of the clash between the old and
ithe new is to be found in the pages of the Fortnightly and
its debates with its opponent, the old Quarterly, joined on
occasion by the Edinburgh. Moreover, as the leading radi
cal organ, the Fortnightly helped create that climate of
|opinion whereby socialist schemes were able to "sprout
I under the capitalist shell1 ' in the early 1880’s while at
i
the same time providing a specific link between the Bentha
mites and the Fabians whose philosophy was to have the most
important socialist influence on English democracy.
Of the three socialist parties formed between 1881
and 1883, the Marxian Social Democratic Federation founded
by Henry Hyndman, the Socialist League formed by William
'Morris, and the Fabian Society, it was the last, of course,
| that ultimately became the main socialist influence on the
Labor Party and on the socialist movement in general.
Three points about the Fabians should be made in order to
^Lectures on the Relation Between Law & [sic] Public
Opinion in England During the Nineteenth Century (London.
1924), p. 66.
260
1 appreciate the Fortnightly1s position and contribution to
the evolution of socialism in England. First, the essence,
certainly one of the chief reasons for the success, of the
Fabians was Sidney Webb's "theory of the continuity of
8
development from capitalism to socialism." That is, the
social reforms of the earlier 19th century were held to be
essentially in line with socialism. The Fabians maintained
I that they simply extended the sphere of State activity and
applied democracy to industry. In short, it was the
"gradualist" approach, and John Morley offered that as the
key to political change in 1874 in the Fortnightly.
Second, the Fabians thought of John Stuart Mill's later
i
;views on socialism as the link between theirs and the
"greatest happiness" principle of Jeremy Bentham. Mill
they rightly observed as still too rooted in the old indi
vidualism; therefore, they "regarded themselves as com
pleting the work which he had begun and thus found further
cause to emphasize their continuity with older liberal
g
thought." Among the specific views of Mill that influ
enced them (and converted William Morris, too, by the way)
were his attempt to sum up his estimate of socialism in the
O
G. D. H. Cole, "Fabianism," Encyclopedia of the
Social Sciences (New York, 1931), vol. 6, p. 46a.
^Ibid., p. 47a.
261
I first four chapters of a proposed book that appeared in the
Fortnightly in 1879. Third, in every field the character
istic policy of the Fabians was that of "permeation.” And
according to the National Review, it was the Radicals who
introduced that policy which was once expressed by Sir
Charles Dilke in this manner: "We Radicals were once too
much disposed to act as a separate party rather than to
attempt to diffuse our ideas so as to permeate the Liberal
Party as a whole.
The Fortnightly, from the very beginning, had re
vealed itself as a conductor for thought that moved from
modified liberalism to democratic socialism. The main
current could be seen in the pro-labor policy of the
Review, profoundly influenced by John Stuart Mill. In
fact, the Fortnightly’s reform policy was summed up by
Mill's statement that the social problem of the future
would be: "How to unite the greatest individual liberty of
action, with a common ownership in the raw material of the
globe, and an equal participation of all in the benefits of
combined labour."^ There was regard for the old indi
vidualism in that view, but there was also the conviction,
j
as Morley put it, that somehow the worker had to get enough j
■^Quoted by Thomas Tantivy, "A Dialogue and a
Moral," National Review, 1 (Mar., 1883), 6.
H-See above, p. 81.
262
pay to clothe, house, and feed his family, to educate his
12
I children, and to put some aside for old age or sickness.
i
There were two principal means by which these better ma
terial conditions might be gained: unionism and the power
of the State. As we have already seen in a preceding chap
ter, most workers in this period preferred to rely on their
industrial organization rather than on political action.
And the Fortnightly was not very far ahead of them on this
in the beginning. Professor Beesly provided the character
istic recommendation when, after noting that socialism or
communism had no great appeal for the working classes, he
maintained that unionism was the best system at the
worker’s disposal for sharing in the wealth of their capi
talist employers without too greatly reducing the responsi
bility and incentive of the entrepreneur. Workmen who have
joined unions, he said, "have instinctively grasped the
maxim that we shall best serve the cause of progress,
xdiether political or social, by striving not to displace
the actual possessors of power, but to teach them to use
1 ^
itheir power for the interests of society." J The main
objective of industrial organization and of government was
the "comfort and happiness" of the workmen. The government
12"Public Affairs," 7 (June 1, 1867), 758.
1 ^
"The Social Future of the Working Class," 11
(Mar. 1, 1869), 355.
263
!
!might help by taxing; but Beesly was quick to add that it
!must not do so excessively. It ought not to intervene
1 where it encouraged idleness or excess population, nor to
lower the prices of food or houses. It might regulate
sanitary conditions, provide medical aid and education, but
no more. Even Frederic Harrison, who had served on the
Royal Commission investigating unions, perhaps the most
"radical” defender of labor in these early days of the
Fortnightly, was scarcely more extreme when he talked of
;the need for a "constructive" government to replace the old
middle class one based on a "religion of Parliament, Bible,
and Free Trade." His government would be chiefly concerned
1
:With aid in solving the problems of better housing for the
!poor, better health and sanitation, a reorganization of
education and the landholding system. And Gladstone and
Disraeli would soon take care of most of that program. ^
As mild as this beginning program was, the Quarterly
and the Edinburgh quickly saw in it, and pounced on, the
guiding hand of Mill's later radicalism and the principle
I of the "greatest happiness of the greatest number." They
were the opening wedges toward a more socialistic body of
legislation. The Edinburgh denounced Mill's vision of the
"social problem of the future" as nothing more than that
^"The Transit of Power," 9 (April 1, 1868), 374-96.
264
i
! of class warfare aimed at the "subversion of all property,
I religion, and law."^ Taken all in all, said the Review,
i
I Mill1s whole life-work was only destructive. Damningly, he
:had contributed nothing practical to the machinery of
government--and the same went for his followers. The
;Quarterly was not as petulant: one could certainly differ
with Mill, but at least he had enough intelligence to have
opinions and to hold them. No, the Review said, the
workers and their spokesmen kept looking to some kind of
state action to remedy their lot, but the root of the
matter was that they have the power to correct the abuses
themselves. Their own ignorance, drunkenness, and improvi
dence were at the root of the workman’s plight. They had
only to stop drinking and to save their money instead of
contributing to those "exacting and despotic organiza
tions," the trade unions. Certainly they should not listen
to men like Harrison, who was playing with ideas promul
gated by "a mischievous, hot-headed, and intemperate
1
German, named Karl Marx."
The conflict between those who looked to the greater
■^"The Autobiography of John Stuart Mill," 139
(Jan., 1874), 125.
•^"The Proletariat on a False Scent," 132 (Jan.,
1872), 255. Das Kapital had appeared five years earlier.
Apparently Marx's character was more readily and widely
known than his dogmas.
265
!use of the State as a regulatory power, those who sought to
,shape the economy so that it met more of the needs of the
working classes (if it did not favor them outright), and
those who opposed the drift toward democratic socialism,
was aggravated and sharpened after 1870. To the disap
pointment of the unionists with Gladstone’s labor legisla
tion were added the repercussions of the French civil war
and the creation of the Third French Republic. Democracy
and republicanism went on trial once again, and their
association with socialism became a critical issue.
The French civil war, said Morley, just as the
: American civil war, revealed the mutual hostility of
classes in England. The English worker instinctively sym
pathised with the French against the Germans, and the
triumph of the republic would be of incalculable advantage
to their cause:
The triumph of freedom in the United States did
much for us. The triumph of freedom in France
would do more. Nothing would tend more powerfully
to de-aristocratise our government, to force atten
tion to new social ideas. * • '
But an assembly of "Bourbonists and priests" crushed Repub-
lican Paris in what Morley’s ally Harrison described as a
monstrous orgy of calculated vengeance. Thus the crisis in |
France, he said, stated the social problem of the day: the
■^"England and the War," 14 (Oct. 1, 1870), 482.
266
exploitation of the workers by capitalists who made and
interpreted the law, who employed toadying teachers and
preachers to support the old order. The Commune’s answer
iwas communism, or nearly so he thought; and one day that
answer would be affirmed. Capitalism with its credo of
competition could not stay the faith of the masses in
bringing capitalism and the ordering of society under the
j control of social authority. But once again, in that
characteristic blend of conservatism and radicalism that
marked the thinking of Harrison and Morley (to be seen more
clearly below), Harrison offered a milder prescription for
England than what he seemed to suggest in his defense of
; the Paris Commune. As an alternative to communism, he
offered Positivism, which called for cooperation, for
"moralised" capitalism.
The Quarterly and the Edinburgh were not put off,
however, and attacked the "soft on socialism" spirit of the
Fortnightly. The issues involved in that terrible con
flict, said Lord Salisbury in the Quarterly, were:
the preface to a controversy which will thrust
; what we call politics into the background, in
favour of a social conflict the most critical and
the most embittered that has yet shaken the fabric
of civilization. - * - 9
I -^"The Fall of the Commune," 16 (Aug. 1, 1871),
129-55.
19
"The Commune and the Internationale," 131 (Oct.,
1871), 550.
I
267
The Prussian defeat of France, in fact, had illustrated the
i fatal weakness of democracy; for the real reason behind the
collapse of the French was their chronic instability of
government. "They have never agreed upon a form of govern
ment to replace that which they overturned" in 1789. Every
attempt to restore the old form of government was "baffled
by the spirit which originally destroyed it." The workers
had been pursuing the phantom of liberty, equality, and
fraternity for eighty years now, and they were no closer to
success than at the first.
The right to have work always found for them is as
impossible an ideal as ever; but they continue to
dream of equality and to organize anarchy with
unabated fervor. They remain a standing menace to
social order--the incurable canker of the civilisa
tion on which they f e e d .20
At bottom, then, the civil war in France was the story of
the Parisian worker inspired by International Socialist
ideas in revolt against monarchical, Catholic France. It
was thus primarily an attack on private property, and those
like Frederic Harrison and John klorley who viewed the
Parisian attack on the economic, political, and religious
systems in a favourable light were toying with the same
i
I
!ideas. Surely there was a lesson in all this, protested
j
Salisbury. England must have firmer leadership to resist
^"Political Lessons of the War," 130 (Jan., 1871),
261.
268
I the inroads of that divisive fractious democratic spirit
that had been rising since 1832, a leadership that truckled
less to public opinion than the Liberals were wont to do.
That party was only being prodded on by the Radical wing,
which, bent on senseless change for the sake of change, was
driving towards an attack on private property— that'same
fatal tendency seen in the Internationale in France. A
halt had to be called.
_It was not long before the most extreme charges of
the old Reviews seemed to be coming true. Morley and
Harrison were essentially moderates. They were for social
reform, though neither had any blind love for "the people"
or excessive idealism about democracy. Both, like Mill,
condemned a "false" democracy of government by mere numbers
and the equation of every man’s voice and capacities with
every other's. "Democracy," said Harrison, "is only the
revolutionary negation of false forms of Authority, and
from the nature of human instincts represents no permanent
21
phase." Both men had too much of the old self-reliant
individualism to ever be socialists. Thus they had main
tained a moderately liberal-democratic tone to the Fort
nightly’ s progressivism. But in 1873 there came a new
voice to the pages of the Review, a new voice amid the
^"The Revival of Authority," Fortnightly, 19
(Jan. 1, 1873), 7.
governing classes of England that had a terrible ring and
power to it: that of Joseph Chamberlain. Elected mayor of
Birmingham (1873-76), Chamberlain charged that the Liberal
government was bankrupt: its education act of 1870 was the
worst act in forty years, its labor legislation was mere
class legislation. It had absolutely failed to recognize
the needs of the majority of the newly enfranchised.
Of one thing we may be certain--that if we continue
much longer to flaunt our wealth and luxury in the
face of a vast population, whose homes would dis
grace a barbarous country, whose lack of culture
and education leaves them a prey to merely animal
instincts, and who find it difficult, and often
impossible, to procure the barest necessaries of
life, we shall be startled some day by the abrupt
and possibly inconvenient accomplishment of reforms
which will throw into the shade the splendid
achievements of a Ministry that now confines it
self to preparing bills which are meant to be with
drawn, and which pass into the limbo of unaccom
plished legislation, unwept, unhonoured, and
unsung.22
Therefore, he offered a Nex? Liberal Programme to the coun
try in order to force "the liberal lotos-eaters to abandon
their selfish indolence": "Free Church, Free Land, Free
Schools, and Free Labour." The state church, which only
fostered privilege and spread opium for the masses, must be
disestablished. To increase production from the land,
facilities for the transfer of small properties must be
developed, the absorption of common land halted, and the
99
"The Liberal Party and its Leaders," Fortnightly,
20 (Sept. 1, 1873), 292.
270
land laws changed. Free schools were simply a.necessity
along with the principle of compulsion in them. Labour
must be freed by ending the restrictions on trade unions
and recognizing that labour will have a larger share of
profit.
Chamberlain, as we have already seen in an earlier
chapter, put his program into action with his Birmingham
municipal socialism. That had aimed, he said:
to promote the health, comfort, and happiness of
the town, to increase the opportunities for educa
tion, to multiply the facilities for innocent
recreation, and so to put in practise the creed of
Radicalism and to secure the greatest happiness of
the greatest number.23
In 1876 he was elected member of Parliament and, of course,
sought to extend his creed to the national level:
We trust the people, and . . . we have a firm con
fidence in their good sense and patriotism. If
the greatest happiness of the greatest number be,
as I believe it is, the chief end of government,
then we think that the people best understand
their own affairs, and are likely best to secure
their highest interests without at the same time
doing any injustice to any class or section.^
In Chamberlain, democrats had found a spokesman with
tremendous power that crashed constantly upon conservatives
I after 1883.
New Political Organization," Fortnightly. 28
(July 1, 1877), 130.
94
"The Future of the Radical Party," Fortnightly.
40 (July 1, 1883), 6.
i
271
And Lord Salisbury at once saw Chamberlain as a
mortal enemy of England. The famous duel in 1883 between
the two men, which we shall examine later, really began in
1873 with the announcement of Chamberlain1s New Liberal
Programme, not at the later date as is sometimes thought.
"The Radical programme," Lord Salisbury trumpeted:
is so plainly before the world that no one can
deceive himself. . . . If you translate their
"Free Church, Free School, Free Land, Free Labour"
from their dialect into ordinary English, it means
legislation against the employer, legislation
against the landlord, legislation against the
Church. By the nature of things it must be so.
Progress must inevitably lead them to an assault
on property, or an assault on the Church Estab
lishment. 25
Once again the great Conservative called on moderate Liber
als to hold firm against these Radicals, who, like their
continental counterparts, by their attack on property,
aimed at "godless education" and the "dead level of democ
racy." To which Chamberlain scoffingly replied: "Lord
Salisbury will soon be the last Tory in England.
The poor Whiggish Edinburgh, increasingly alienated
from Gladstone, who had given ear (so it thought) to the
;Radicals, and in 1874 finding its whole party out of
i
joffice, attempted to call Liberals and their supporters
i
t
i '■ ■■ i— ™— i..— i
!
^"The Programme of the Radicals," Quarterly, 135
j(Oct., 1873), 568.
! 9 £ .
"The Next Page of the Liberal Programme," Fort
nightly, 22 (Oct. 1, 1874), 417.
Ill
back from the siren lure of Radicalism. The workers knew
who their real friends were: not the Tories with their
counterfeit liberalism, nor the Radicals with their con
fiscatory policies, but the moderate--that is, the Whig--
core of the Liberal party. As for the New Liberal Pro
gramme, that could be interpreted to sound rather like the
old Whig policy of "Civil, Commercial, and Religious
Freedom." It was true that men like Chamberlain and Sir
Charles Dilke might push their program to extremes, but at
bottom it was merely a difference in practise, not of prin
ciples as it was with the Tories! No, most English workmen
were sound on that score and would neither follow the will-
o'-the-wisp of Radical theory nor be duped into a "con
servative reaction.Wishfully, the Review mumbled on.
For those whom Joseph Chamberlain’s inflammatory
language might alienate, however, John Morley offered
another approach to change in his Fortnightly. It was the
technique of "gradualism," that is, small reforms were to
be the key to successful political progress, the point at
which both conservatives and liberals might meet. It
jshould be noted too that Morley’s shrewder insight into the,
j |
inature of English politics outlined the path that was fol- j
j j
!lowed in the age of democracy and by none more successfully
j
]--------------------
; ^"Mr. Disraeli's Glasgow Speeches," 139 (Jan.,
11874), 271-88.
i i
273
than the Fabian socialists. Morley's "progressivism" was,
in several ways, rather similar to that of some of the
American Progressives thirty years later. It was a search
for social justice: it had a high moral aspect, sought to
restrict or abolish privilege and monopoly, to increase the
popular element in government, and, while stressing the
democratic spirit, included the qualities of men who could
scarcely be called democratic in the mid-20th century
sense. Just as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson
stressed individualism, personal responsibility, and a
scorn of commonness, so the writings of Morley and Chamber-
lain revealed these qualities. Indeed, Morley's thought
was based on a characteristic blend of radicalism and con
servatism, a dichotomy that has served more than one poli
tician well. He acknowledged Smith, Bentham, and Mill as
his most important teachers in his earlier years. He could
even cite Rousseau for his beneficial impetus to social
reform. (He had set forth as no one had ever done before
the nullity of a civilization if the majority do not par
take of the benefits thereof.) But in practical politics
jit was Burke who was Morley's real guide. He could move
|to a closer association with the Radicals Chamberlain and
i
jDilke after Mill's death in 1873, but he offered a program
|of "Gradualism,'' "the true side of conservative theory."
j "In the positive endeavor to realise an opinion,"
274
said Morley,
to convert theory into practise, it may be and very
often is highly expedient to defer to the pre
judices of the majority, to move very slowly, to
defer to the conditions of the status quo, to prac
tise the very utmost sobriety, self-restraint and
conciliatoriness.28
That did not mean acquiescing in things as they were, nor
suppressing an idea that one thinks is true merely out of
deference to traditional thought on the subject. The true
compromiser holds courageously to his idea, "but neither
forces nor expects the whole world straightway to follow."^9
Thus in social reform he presses for small reforms, but for
those that are consistent with a larger set of principles
and vision and with a view to further extension along lines
of logical evolution and progression toward the higher
goal. "Above all, in politics we have an art in which
development depends on small modifications. That is the
30
true side of the conservative theory." There are few
paragraphs that more neatly sum up one of the cardinal
principles of Fabianism.
Morley1s program for Liberals implied an evolution
ary view of society, a proposal that it be seen as a
i I
I - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - i
; !
^"On Compromise," Fortnightly, 21 (June 1, 1874), |
727. ;
i
i ^"On Compromise," Fortnightly, 22 (Aug. 1, 1874),
229.
3QIbid., p. 236.
275
"growing organism" whose vitality depends on a series of
changes and re-adaptations. With this in view, he thought,
Liberals ought then to seek to limit the sphere of au
thority, to extend the area of free individuality and
equality of opportunity ("so far as the nature of things
will ever permit it"), and to substitute Justice for Privi
lege in politics. "And the best guarantee for justice in
public dealings is the participation in their own govern-
0*1
ment of the people most likely to suffer from injustice."
It was only Liberalism under a very thin coat of democracy.
But it was in keeping with the favourite English political
method: "Change anything except the appearance of things";^
and perhaps for that very reason it was successful in the
long run.
The technique of gradualism could be double-edged
too. For everything depended on "the higher goal." Five
years after it had been enunciated, it was applied to a
recommendation for the introduction of socialism--and by no
less a person than John Stuart Mill. In four posthumous
chapters of what was to have been an exhaustive study of
socialism (cut short by his death), Mill urged the demo
cratization of the economy. Democratic suffrage, he said,
■^"On Compromise," Fortnightly. 21 (June 1, 1874),
735.
o o
j Brogan, The English People: Impressions and
!Observations, p. 108.
had come to the United States and to France; England had
not yet included as many within the pale of the constitu
tion, but a sufficient number had been admitted to indicate
the future. The working classes would inevitably organize
themselves for the use of their power, and it was thus of
the "utmost importance" that an objective appraisal be made
of working class political aims.
At the ordinary pace of those great social changes
which are not effected by physical violence, we
have before us an interval of about a generation,
on the due employment of which it depends whether
the accommodation of social institutions to the
altered state of human society, shall be the work
of wise foresight, or of a conflict of opposite
prejudices.33
The discussion must go to first principles. Until the pres
ent age, the rights of private property were thought to be
fundamental. But the enfranchised classes were "property
less" and would view those "rights" with no such reverence
as those who preceded them in political power. There must
therefore be a "class-less" examination of the institution
of property. What does not stand the examination will be
swept away; what does not contribute, and is not responsi
ble to, "public benefit" will be attacked and eliminated.
|
He proposed then:
33"chapters on Socialism," Fortnightly, 31 (Feb.* 1,
1879), 220. The book had been conceived in 1869, and these
four chapters released by Helen Taylor to John Morley in
1879. They appeared in the Feb., Mar., and April issues of
the Review.
i
277
to ascertain what institutions of property would
be established by an unprejudiced legislator,
absolutely impartial between the possessors of
property and the non-possessors. . . . Such
rights or privileges of property as will not stand
this.test will, sooner or later, have to be given
up.34
Since socialism, which was every day gaining listeners
among the workers, made an attack on private property as
fundamental, an examination of it was mandatory.
There was much justice in the socialist attacks on
the existing evils of society; but they also suffered from
many errors in their plans to remedy the situation. It was
not true, for example, to say as Louis Blanc did that the
workers were getting poorer. All the facts pointed to a
general rise in wages and well-being, though individual
industries might be suffering. The attack on the evils of
competition had justice, of course, but socialists saw only
the negative side of competition; they did not dwell on the
positive effect it had upon wages, incentive, and quality.
Socialists often erred too in their view of the proportion
of the rewards of production that were shared: capital had
;not the free hand with its investments that they imagined
at times; it was to the interest of both capital and labor
to see that investments continued to prosper. Mere equal
izing of the inequalities of distribution would not solve
i ........ 1 ' ' ■■■'« '-■"-i"
■^"Chapters on Socialism," Fortnightly. 31 (Feb. 1,
1879), 223.
278
nearly as much as the socialists thought. And socialists
probably could not solve the problem of incentive any
better than private property had done.
It had to be remembered that there were different
kinds of socialism, however. There was the revolutionary
kind, concocted by men with a:
serene confidence in their own wisdom on the one
hand and a recklessness of other peoples’ suffer
ings on the other, which Robespierre and St. Just,
hitherto the typical instances of those united
attributes, scarcely come up to.35
With that kind of socialism Mill could not be bothered.
Evolutionary socialism, the kind suggested by Owen and
;Fourier, however, was a different matter. It avoided the
terrible concentration of power in the hands of a central
government and it might be introduced gradually--portions
of it at least--to limited communities and areas. Thus it
could prove itself in the traditional, empirical manner.
Unfortunately, Mill was unable to finish the planned
study and concluded in such a cautious manner, with all the
masterful evasion that Gladstone excelled in, that men can
still debate to this day whether he ever really became a
convinced socialist.^
The result of our review of the various diffi
culties of Socialism has led us to the conclusion
■^"Chapters on Socialism," 31 (Mar. 1, 1879), 514.
■^See above, pp. 78-85.
279
that the various schemes for managing the produc
tive resources of the country by public instead of
private agency have a case for a trial, and some
of them may eventually establish their claims to
preference over the existing order of things, but
that they are at present workable only by the
elite of mankind, and have yet to prove their
power of training mankind at large to the state
of improvement which they presuppose.^'
Education might change this, but that was slow. The prin
ciple of private property would continue to hold the field
for a long time. Still, he admonished in a kind of second
thought, private property had a "provisional existence"
ahead of it and it did not mean that it might go the whole
time unmodified. Those who profited from it should see
that it was less onerous on the majority. That was only
being prudent so that they might "place themselves in the
right against the attempts which are sure to be frequent to
bring the socialist forms of society prematurely into oper-
,.38
ation."
Mill's program seemed to leave matters in the air.
No major political figure came forward to adopt the idea of
introducing socialism--at least not yet. Meanwhile, it
will be recalled, during Disraeli's administration and the
l
first years of Gladstone’s second administration, a change
in opinion toward the positive use of the State for the
benefit of the majority had taken place in conservative
■^"Chapters on Socialism," 31 (April 1, 1879), 524-5.
38Ibid., p. 527.
280
no less than liberal circles. After Mill’s articles had
appeared, the Quarterly, still the staunch defender of
laissez-faire principles, continued to hold up for the
worker's edification Samuel Smiles’ books with their stress
on independence and self-reliance as the qualities most
needful for worldly success. At the same time, however,
the Review was able to defend Disraeli’s labor and social
ilegislation as soundly constitutional, quite in accord with
the political economy of Adam Smith. The duty of the
"Imperial Government" was:
to regulate or improve the machinery by which the
nation despatches its business, to adjust the
Constitution to the wants of the time, to rectify
inequalities where they are found to exist, and to
protection where it is absolutely neces-
Thus Disraeli's social legislation had been an adjustment
to the needs of the age, a redemption of a pledge to care
for the "health and comfort of the people." It had not
that "meddlesome," wearying, interventionist spirit of
Gladstone’s government of 1868-74; it was still guided by
the "master principle of all constitutional government--
inon-intervention." But the Quarterly was taking a more
positive view of the government's duty to the "health and
comfort of the people," the favorite subject of Radicals;
in fact it had walked on to that ground which Morley had
3Q
"Principles at Stake," 148 (Oct., 1879), 580.
281
said was a meeting place for conservatives and liberals.
Through the door of social welfare legislation they might
i
both pass--to the greater regulation of capital and labor
and thence to the greatest happiness of the greatest num
ber.
The Quarterly continued. At bottom there was a gulf
between Conservatives and Radicals, it said. The former
saw man's nature as imperfect and limited their views to
Christian revelation; the latter recognized no origin of
the human race and looked to the illimitable perfectability
of mankind. From these views stemmed the two attitudes on
freedom and authority, the State and the individual. Con
servatives, the Review reminded its readers, were not
always against enlargement of freedom, against all changes:
They recognized in the Constitution the principle
of growth, but they hold that, as with all forms
of organized life, this principle has its limits.
They desire that the State should interfere as
little as possible with the liberty of the indi
vidual, but that its whole force should be put
forth to maintain the greatness of the empire.
The Radicals act on the reverse principle. They
wish for the intervention of the State to drive
the nation in the direction of their own theories.
. . . In a word, we may say that the Conserva
tives are as ready as the Radicals to adopt the
| motto of "progress,” but that while the latter
| signify by the word their belief in the perfecta-
! bility of mankind, the Conservatives limit its
application to the organic growth of the Constitu
tion.^
^"Principles at Stake," 148 (Oct., 1879), 589-90.
282
Again, on the eve of Disraeli’s 1880 defeat, the Quarterly
gave further evidence that it was willing to use the power
of the State on behalf of the working classes, to adjust
the national life in the direction of the new collectiv-
ism--though it preferred the term "Tory," not "Radical,”
Democracy. In reviewing the Duke of Somerset's Monarchy
and Democracy, a work filled with "suppressed abhorrence"
of democracy and offering only a fatalistic resignation in
the face of the rise of democracy, the Review rejected such
gloomy views. The Duke’s fears were unwarranted; he had
misread the constitution. Even if the Radicals' Universal
Suffrage that he feared did come, there were safeguards.
Further, the Quarterly was "ready to trust in the conmon-
sense of a people trained up in centuries of monarchical
and aristocratic traditions.And the Duke’s fears of an
assault on capital by labor or a "legislative confiscation
of property," were equally unjustified. To the Duke's fear
that the laissez-faire spirit of Adam Smith's was being
exchanged for the paternalism of Bacon's time, the Review
replied that it was true that Smith's principles had been
infringed on, but one could not push them to the extreme.
They had resulted in dangerous conditions for the lower
orders, and prohibitive legislation had been necessary.
I
^"Monarchy and Democracy," 149 (Jan., 1880), 251.
283
Even more might be necessary.
No doubt some of this cautious concession to democ
racy on the part of the Quarterly was an effort to raise
the declining fortunes of the Conservative government in
its last years. The intellectual acceptance of change was
genuine enough as long as it could be justified by the
philosophic basis of conservatism; but practical politics
demanded that something more be done for the party. More
over, the Review had increasingly displayed its respect, at
times almost reverence, for Disraeli and his political
acumen. Thus in 1880 when he went down in the most crush
ing conservative defeat in forty-five years--so Gladstone
/ 0
said, interpreting it as a mandate for reform --the Review
drew back from its "progressive” position and called out
once again to the Whigs for their support against any "ugly
rush" toward democracy^ There was no longer any real dif
ference, it said, between the two old aristocratic groups.
In fact, Whigs who persisted in staying in the Liberal
party were fast becoming merely "the delegated instruments
/ Q
of democracy." True conservatives should join forces.
Nor was the appeal a vain one according to Lord Acton.
i AO
Index, "The Conservative Collapse," Fortnightly,
33 (May 1, 1880), 607-24.
i o
"Whigs, Radicals, and Conservatives," 150 (July,
1880), 277.
284
"Many Liberals," he wrote to Mary Gladstone, "see the
moment looming when they will have more sympathy with a
party led by moderate Conservatives than with a party
inspired by Radical Democrats."44 Perhaps partly because
of this there came a trough in the rising tide of democracy
and socialism between 1880 and 1883.
The Whigs were on the defensive; there was no ques
tion about that, of course. Their position in the Liberal
party had become less and less tenable with the decline of
land based wealth and England's shift to an urban industri
al basis in the 1870's. Thus rather wistfully, the Edin
burgh answered its old rival by protesting that Earl
Russell's spirit was still the guiding force in its life
and that the Liberal party would one day be reconstituted
as he had said on a Whig basis. After all, the Whigs were
still the best men who clung "to the good old cause of
constitutional progress with stability of principles and
fixity of purpose.It would be suicidal if the party
were to expel them, because they were the men best:
fitted by education, character and conviction, to
; harmonise democratic ideas with the Permanent Con
servative forces of the country. It is among them,
and not among the Radicals, that constructive j
ability is still to be found. . . .^°
! !
i - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - i
44Letters to Mary Gladstone (Sept. 10, 1884), p. 309.
! 4^"Plain Whig Principles," 151 (Jan., 1880), 258.
! 46Ibid., p. 262.
285
In short, the Review denied that the Whigs were the "dele
gated instruments of democracy." But by its very insist
ence that the great Whig families be preserved in the new
society, it was rather like those who endeavored to main
tain castles in the 20th century. It was protecting museum
pieces.
Gladstone apparently agreed with the Edinburgh, how
ever, when he filled his cabinet in 1880. Eight of the
eleven were Whigs; the only Radical was Joseph Chamberlain,
who came in as President of the Board of Trade. It was not~
until December 1882 that he was joined by Sir Charles Dilke
as President of the Local Government Board. And this was
V
to explain in large part why "never in the modem era has
a triumphant house of commons majority achieved so
little.During these early years of Gladstone's second
administration, the Edinburgh had little to say on Chamber-
lain* s welfare state principles. Perhaps to play down the
division in the party, perhaps because it was only an old
relative in a busy house, its mention and allusions to
Chamberlain's Programme were brief. In general it scoffed
at the "crude" and "simple-minded" opinions of the Radi-
i
cals. It talked more about property's rights than those of j
the worker, and, of course, was much closer to the Quarterly
/ ”7
Ensor, Modern England, p. 67.
286
than to the Fortnightly on the issue of socialism. Laissez-
faire had had its day, the Review was willing to concede;
but one could not go too far with state intervention lest
individual responsibility be lost. By July of 1882, how
ever, it had become alarmed and dropped its patronizing
attitude toward the Liberal left wing; for the legislation
of the year filled it with "pain, disappointment and
regret." Gladstone, it claimed, was falling under the in
fluence of the Radicals again. And the "subversive" school
of Birmingham politicians with their "machine politics" and
"arbitrary power" over the masses, with their reliance on
the power of the State, were designing a tyranny as great
as that of the Jacobins. Parliament and property, the
AO
Review exclaimed, were in the greatest danger.
The Edinburgh was not alone in observing an awakened
democratic movement in that year. To the new editor of the
Fortnightly, T. H. S. Escott, the election of a Liberal
with a Radical program of social reform in the Conservative
stronghold of Liverpool was a mark of the change coming
over English politics. The working classes were beginning
to see the State as an organ for legislative correction of
abuses, he thought, and they were beginning to see it
within their power. Interestingly too, the Conservative
^"A Retrospect of the Session," 156 (July, 1882),
260-93.
49
candidate had professed a program of Tory Democracy.
Whigs and Tories could not hold the line indefi
nitely; reform had to come; the next step toward democracy
had to be made. And just as Mill had argued that the
advance of the democratic movement was inevitable, that it
would sweep toward socialism, and that men had to accept
and make plans for its arrival, so Lord Acton, confidant of
Mary Gladstone and devoted supporter of the Prime Minister,
siammed up the clear, compelling case for reform and its
link with economics:
As to Democracy, it is true that masses of new
electors are utterly ignorant, that they are easily
deceived by appeals to prejudice and passion, and
are consequently unstable, and that the difficulty
of explaining economic questions to them and of
linking their interests with those of the State,
may become a danger to the public credit, if not to
the security of private property. A true Liberal,
as distinguished from a Democrat, keeps this peril
always before him.
The answer is, that you cannot make an omelette
without breaking eggs--that politics are not made
up of artifices only, but of truths, and that
truths have to be told.
We are forced, in equity, to share the govern
ment with the working class by considerations which
were made supreme by the awakening of political
economy. Adam Smith set up two propositions--that
contracts ought to be free between capital and
labour, and that labour is the source, he sometimes
i says the only source, of wealth. . . . If there is
| a free contract, in open market, between capital
j and labour, it cannot be right that one of the two
! contracting parties should have the making of the
| laws, the management of the conditions, the keeping
49
’ ’ Home and Foreign Affairs,’ 1 39 (Jan. 1, 1883),
144-5.
288
of the peace, the administration of justice, the
distribution of taxes, the control of expenditure,
in its own hands exclusively. It is unjust that
all these securities, all these advantages, should
be on the same side. It is monstrous that they
should be all on the side that has least urgent
need of them, that has least to lose. Before this
argument, the ancient dogma, that power attends on
property, broke down. Justice required that prop
erty should— not abdicate, but--share its political
supremacy. Without this partition, free contract
was as illusory as a fair duel in which one man
supplies seconds, arms, and ammunition.
That is the flesh and blood argument. That is
why Reform, full of questions of expediency and
policy in detail, is, in the gross, not a question
of expediency or of policy at all. . . .50
By 1883 it was no longer a question of whether to
reform or not; it was largely a matter of how. And in the
spring of that year Joseph Chamberlain rallied the Radical
forces with his famous retort to his old opponent:
Lord Salisbury constitutes himself the spokesman
of a class--of the class to which he himself be
longs, who toil not neither do they spin . . .,
whose fortunes--as in his case--have originated by
grants made in times gone by for the services
which courtiers rendered kings . . ., and have
since grown and increased, while they have slept,
by levying an increased share on all that other
men have done by toil and labour to add to the
general wealth and prosperity of the country.
. . .51
Harsh words these, with their class antagonism. But by
I autumn of that year he had forced Gladstone’s Whig cabinet
j
to consider a new franchise bill.
50
Letters to Mary Gladstone, pp. 193-5.
51
-^Quoted by J. L. Garvin, The Life of Joseph
Chamberlain, 4 vols. (London, 1932), I, 392.
289
Meanwhile an offensive had been mounted in the Fort
nightly. In January of 1883 Frederick Pollock, soon to
become professor of jurisprudence at Oxford, in a series of
articles on the history of the science of politics opened
the way for the interventionist welfare state. The founda
tion of the modem English theory of the State, he said,
was laid in Bentham's definition of political society, and
Bentham’s "capital discovery in political science" was the
duty of the sovereign to make laws that promoted the
greatest happiness of the governed. The practical infer
ence from combining the principal of utility with this
theory of sovereignty is that:
the State has no excuse for being backward in well
doing. The greatest happiness is the end of human
action; abuses and grievances exist; let the su
premacy of the State, the most powerful form of
human action, be set to abolish them. . . . Let
there be no superstition about old rules being
inviolable merely because they are old. Let no
prescriptive privilege stand in the way of the
general good. Above all, let none pretend a want
of power to do these things. The State bears not
sovereignty in v a in .52
As for the "minimizers" of State action, like Spencer, one
could only refer them back to Aristotle's question: "What
jdoes the State exist for?" The "minimizers" said that it
!existed only for protection. Aristotle said that it was:
^"The History of the Science of Politics," 39
j (Jan. 1, 1883), 87.
290
founded on the need for protection, but exists for
more than protection. . . . Not only material
security, but the perfection of human and social
life, is what we aim at in that organized co
operation of many men’s lives and works which is
called the State. I fail to see good warrant of
either reason or experience for limiting the cor
porate activity of a nation by hard and fast
rules.53
Conservatives might bristle at Pollock's argument,
seeing overtones of Jacobinism in his desire for "the per
fection of human and social life"; but he was only a
Girondist by comparison with the Radical Member Henry
Labouchere, whose vision of the coming democracy made not
a few think him either an enrage or mad. He demanded first
that the legislature be made a truly democratic organ of
the people. Each vote was to be made equal, the cost of
elections to be put on taxpayers, the House of Lords was to
be abolished, and a time limit of three years to be set on
Parliament. Thus purged, the legislature could proceed to
cut down court expenditures ("Why should the Queen get
fc 800,000 when the American President gets only about
t, 10,000 per annum?"), to disestablish the Church, to in
troduce a progressive income tax, and to spread out the
|ownership of land. He protested that he was not dreaming
I
i
|of absolute financial equality, but in the new society:
i ^^"The History of the Science of Politics," Fort-
I nightly, 39 (Jan. 1, 1883), 99.
291
Wealth would be more equitably partitioned . . .,
the sum of human happiness would be more equally
divided. Social distinctions would be dependent
rather on merit than on birth or wealth. The pub
lic expenditure reduced . . ., taxation . . .
properly apportioned. The resources of the coun
try no longer squandered in wars to realise a wild
dream of imperialism, or to secure money lenders
the fruits of their spoliations. . . . The public
affairs of England would become the private affairs
of every Englishman. 54-
Even the editor of the Fortnightly in which the article had
appeared scoffed at "Labby’s" democratic Radicalism, while
the Marquis of Blandford asked whether such views were not
the result of "unbalanced judgement," or perhaps another
example of Labouchere’s "political horseplay.
Such visions could be laughed off--at least in 19th
century England--but the voice of a cabinet minister’s
could not. In August of 1883 the first article of a Radi
cal Programme under the leadership of Joseph Chamberlain
C £
appeared in the Fortnightly. It began with the old demo
cratic demands for manhood suffrage, equal electoral
“ ^"A Democrat and the Coming Democracy," Fort
nightly, 39 (Mar. 1, 1883), 380.
“ ’■ ’"The Limits of English Revolution," Fortnightly,
40 (July 1, 1883), 84.
"^Although the Programme was to be published in 1885
by Chamberlain (with a preface by him), the articles were
written by Morley (ex-editor of the Fortnightly), Escott
(then editor), Frank Harris (next editor), Jesse Collings,
and Francis Adams. Chamberlain’s was the guiding hand,
however. Joseph Chamberlain, A Political Memoir: 1880-92,
ed. by C. H. D. Howard (London, 1953), p. 108.
292
districts ("one man, one vote"), and payment of members of
Parliament. With these first essential reforms, the House
of Commons would be made "less an ornamental lounge," with
fewer dilettanti and more professional politicians to do
the work. Then, once the coming reform bill was passed,
the chief aspect of political activity would be social
legislation. The problem would be how "to make life worth
living" for the thousands who now lived in misery:
The path of legislative progress in England has
been for years, and must continue to be, dis
tinctly Socialistic. It is the general business
of the State . . . to convince the possessors of
wealth, and the holders of property, . . . that
they cannot escape the responsibility of trustee
ship. . . .57
To those who cried that the proposed reforms were "un-
English," thereby hoping to demolish the Programme, the
authors asked: "What is English?" If one looked to the
English who had gone to the colonies and asked what they
had conserved as the essential elements of England, the
answer was "practically a democracy--with manhood suffrage,
without a religious establishment, without a second Chamber
composed of titular nobles." That was the direction of the
Radical Programme. It had no intention of abolishing the
throne--as long as the throne was recognized as "ornamentalj
I
and consultative," it had nothing to fear from Radicalism.
■^"The Radical Programme," 40 (Sept. 1, 1883), 446.
293
"Radicals have something else to do than to break butter-
58
flies on wheels." The same applied to the House of
Lords— as long as it avoided collision with the House of
Commons. "If it insists upon asserting itself, it will of
its own accord and by its own act be reformed out of exist
ence."^
"Free Land, free church, free schools," those had
been the cardinal points of the New Liberal Programme of
1873 and they remained the chief points of the Radical
Charter. The goal of "free land" was to multiply land
ownership. To obtain this goal, settlement and entail were
to be abolished and the probate and succession duties
altered. Nationalization of the land was rejected; but the
State was to have much greater power to control the condi
tions of private property, particularly through taxation.
"Free church" of course meant that the Church must be dis
established. The whole tendency of the 19th century had
been toward the "secularization of the State and the
emancipation of the church." To maintain the episcopal
:church as the "seat of privilege" was a "political injus-
1
itice, a social mischief, and a hindrance to the full sense
! £ /-j
of equal citizenship in a united community." "Free
58"The Radical Programme," 40 (Sept. 1, 1883), 436.
~^Ibid., p. 441.
^"The Radical Programme," 41 (May, 1884), 569.
294
i
; schools1 1 meant that in simple fairness the State owed a
;free education to the humblest. The system of compulsory
fees had largely resulted in antagonizing the very people
whom the board schools were set up for; therefore, all
fees were to be abolished with the aim of establishing
truly "people's schools in which the whole community would
join, on equal terms, in the pursuit of a great national
obj ect."^
By 1883 the Radicals wanted more than the earlier
Programme had sought, however. Translating the question of
"how to make life worth living" for the working classes
meant, first, better housing. The Artisan's Dwellings Act
had not worked satisfactorily; therefore it was to be
strengthened and extended by increased State action and, in
addition, applied to the rural areas as well as the urban.
The nub of the difficulty with the existing system for
bettering worker's dwellings was the question of private
versus community rights. Conservatives, led by Lord Salis
bury, accepted the idea of greater responsibility on the
part of the State and looked to it to set an example by
providing cheap housing for public employees, government
i
loans to large private philanthropic institutions engaged j
in housing construction, and an appeal to private business
i
^"The Radical Programme," 41 (Jan. 1, 1884), 18.
; 295
i
I
i men to provide better homes for their employees. On slum
i
I clearance, the State was to have the power to compel the
i
sale of condemned dwellings; but purchase was at the
owner’s often inflated price, and the cost was to be borne
by the community as a whole. The Fortnightly demanded that
i the purchase price be set at what a "willing" seller would
get in the open market and that the burden of cost was to
be met, in part, by an increased tax on the owners of land
which had its value increased by the slum clearance. "It
is not confiscation but citizenship which should make them
willing to contribute on a pro rata principle to the common
good."
If that had overtones of "compelling men to be
free," conservatives had their fears even more confirmed
by the democratic system of taxation proposed by the Pro
gramme. There was to be an adjustment in taxation "throw
ing upon property the duty which it acknowledges but
evades." There would be a greater equalization so that the
poor paid less than they have for necessities and the rich
;paid more for their luxuries. Ominously, the Fortnightly
announced that the methods of levying and collecting taxes
would be improved and simplified. And lastly, there would
be a far more liberal appropriation of State funds "for the
social advancement of the people." On this, taxation
296
j f L
■"cannot be on too liberal a scale." Democracy’s "open"
i
I hand with public money had been thrust forward.
The Fortnightly realized, of course, that what it
was proposing would be a shock to many, and, as if to
soften the blow, added that the Programme was really a
"counsel of perfection," not an immediate goal. It was
i
I " gradualism." But to Conservatives and Whigs there was no
! watering it down: it was revolutionary. The Quarterly
■cried: "nothing more than an unavowed and an undigested
C Q
;Socialism." It was socialism, which:
is infecting at this moment almost every popular
movement that is started or countenanced by the so-
j called Party of Progress; and is so far from being
confined to the manifestoes of Socialistic Feder
ations, that it is reproduced in all its essential
features by that bourgeois member of the present
Ministry, whom the Socialistic Federations most
detest and despise.°4
Marx was Hyndman’s source, said the Review, and Chamberlain
was only emulating his "main mis-statements." It denied
that the condition of the "toilers and spinners" was get
ting worse. Using statistical abstracts from the Report of
the Registrar General and the Census, it reminded the Radi
cals of what Mill had said (and later shown to be true, of
course), that wages had risen, while taxation and hours of
^"The Radical Programme," 43 (July 1, 1885), 130.
Socialism in England," 156 (Oct., 1883), 357.
^"The Statistics of Agitation," 157 (Jan., 1884),
232.
297
labor for the working man had dropped. The Quarterly
concluded that far from what these ’ ’ madmen" and "rascals"
were asserting:
the Constitution is not superannuated, corrupt, or
incapable of doing its work; . . . it is not divid
ing this country, as Mr. Chamberlain says it is,
into two hostile nations of millionaires and
paupers, and will, if not radically altered, pro
duce a fierce social revolution; but that, on the
contrary, under this very Constitution wealth has
been diffusing itself in a way unparalleled in any
other country; that, whilst both rich and poor have
been gaining, the poor have gained the most; and
that England, with her monarchical and aristo
cratic institutions, allows to the people a meas
ure of freedom that is not tolerated in an instant
in 'the lands of universal suffrage.
In the last, and one of his greatest articles for
the Quarterly, Lord Salisbury summed up the evils symbol
ized by the Radical Programme in one word: "disintegra
tion." It was taking place at all levels and inwall
degrees. It was particularly to be seen in the efforts of
the Radical agitator, "that organizer of decay," whose talk
was dividing class against class. By trying to persuade
:the masses that their evils were due to great differences
65
There was room for argument, however. Frederic
Harrison in an address to the Industrial Remuneration Con
ference held in London in 1885, claimed that the Condition
of England question was "enough to condemn modem society
as hardly an advance on slavery and serfdom"--and this was
the "prevailing opinion." Reid, Origins of the British
Labour Party, p. 8.
66.’ The Statistics of Agitation," 157 (Jan., 1884),
232.
298
of wealth and that if only he were given power, he would
bring happiness by equalizing it--indeed, by equalizing all
i
things in his passion for equality--the Radical was cre
ating what a later philosopher was to call "schism in the
soul" of a nation:
Then arises that long conflict between possession
and non-possession, which was the fatal disease of
free communities in ancient times, and which
threatens so many nations at the present day. . . .
There is no reason to believe that this malady,
when once it fastens on a free state, can have any
other than a fatal issue. The length of time dur
ing which it runs must depend, as in all other
battles between disease and health, upon the ro
bustness of the constitution with which it has to
contend. But it slowly kills by disintegration.
It eats out the common sentiments and mutual sym
pathies which combine classes into a patriotic
State. The internal dissension becomes constantly
more rancorous; the common action and common aspi
rations become feebler. The organized body loses
its defensive force against an internal shock, and
falls under the power of the first assailant, for
eign or domestic, by whom it may chance to be
attacked after the final stage of political de
bility has set in.°7
Lord Salisbury may have misjudged his countrymen;
but the Fortnightly1s judgment was equally in error when it
protested that he was indicting a nation and "that he
I should withdraw from a career which, as the past has shown,
may compromise his character, but can yield no harvest of
/TO
success." For even if the future lay with democracy and
^"Disintegration," 156 (Oct., 1883), 576-7.
68’ iThe Marquis of Salisbury, K. G.," 42 (Aug.,
1884), 163.
, " 299
socialism, there was no one, clear solution to England's
problems as she entered the new age; and the nation for
whom the Radical Review claimed to speak remained in doubt.
The democratic masses would continue to grope for economic
security long after they had gained political power; and,
as Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor had said, they would give
away that power in exchange for security--emotional as well
as economic. Thus they would return the Roman-spirited
Salisbury to lead them as they advanced toward the new
society. And later, when they had borne down the old
aristocrats and their middle class supporters, they would
choose new elites.
CHAPTER IX
TOWARD THE NEW SOCIETY
The future is with the masses, with equality, with
democracy. We may resist and bewail ourselves, if
we will, but the nobler part is to hope; the more
courageous part is to throw ourselves into the
stream of our time. . . .
Mrs. Humphrey Ward
(Fortnightly Review)
Whether England was to "disintegrate" or to gain a
new national consciousness, whether socialism was a neces
sary corollary of democracy or not, the issues of the pre
ceding chapter were heightened at the prospect of extending
the vote once again. In spite of the fears and hopes of
the protagonists, the immediate settlement at least was to
be neither disastrous nor a revolutionary leap forward. On
February 5, 1884, Gladstone, prodded by the Radicals,
introduced his franchise bill to the House of Commons where
it easily passed but was held up by the House of Lords on
the grounds that it was also necessary to consider re
distribution. Actually there was no real controversy over
the principle of extending the vote, something which almost
everyone had accepted by now. The most the Fortnightly
could criticize was the delaying tactics of Lord Salisbury
300
301
and the House of Lords on their demand for a Redistribution
;bill— to which the Quarterly replied that conservatives had
i
good reason to distrust Liberal gerrymandering. They
wanted evidence of good faith first. Gladstone and Salis
bury then negotiated directly, and the bill passed, to be
followed the next year by a Redistribution bill.
By 1885 England had practically achieved a democracy.
The franchise bill raised the electorate from approximately
three to five million voters. The old boroughs and coun
ties ceased to be the basis of the House of Commons; the
individual became the basic unit on the principle of "one
vote, one value." London and some of the large, new in
dustrial centers received a greater number of representa
tives; only boroughs with populations of 50-165,000 kept
two or more seats. The remainder were made either single
member constituencies or, if they had fewer than 15,000,
lost their seats. Women, domestic servants, and those who
had no fixed residence still did not have the vote; plural
voting continued to add weight on the side of property; and
;property remained a qualification of the system. But
England now approximated manhood suffrage with equal elec
toral districts, the aim of democrats since the Chartists
and Major Cartwright before them.
And eighteen years after the "leap in the dark" most
of the governing classes of England had come round to
302
accepting the idea of democracy, although many had done so
with reluctance. Radicals had espoused it from the begin
ning, though what they meant by it was not quite the 20th
century version; for even by 1885 their thinking was still
colored by their liberal heritage. More moderate Liberals,
in general, though they had deeply distrusted democracy in
1865, had come to agree that a more democratic government
was necessary, if not inevitable. As the Edinburgh put it
in 1885: government on a broader basis would be stronger
than before, and "if the new democracy . . . brings with it
new strength to government, that alone will compensate for
1
many a disadvantage.1 Conservatives had bitterly opposed
democracy at the beginning of our period but even the
Quarterly now admitted that "Democracy is our inevitable
and immediate destiny." Gloomily it concluded that:
When resistance or deprecation are too late,
regrets are futile. We are doomed to try what is
at best an utterly novel, according to philosophy
and history a perilous and doubtful experiment.
All that remains is to consider and determine its
conditions--to secure if possible that the best,
and not the worst, aspects of the democratic prin
ciple shall be in the ascendant.2
It is apparent, of course, that opinion of the
I governing classes was in agreement only on the rudiments
^"Three Reform Bills," 161 (April, 1885), 597.
2
"Redistribution and Representative Democracy," 158
(July, 1884), 238.
303
i
of modem democracy. Beyond certain common denominators
they remained in deep disagreement. Each had read into the
!
j facts according to his own ’'mirror” of political reality,
and the fuller implications of the idea of democracy con
tinued to divide them. There was agreement on the basic
political nature of democracy: that government ought to
rest more directly on the consent of the majority of adult
males. And most of the governing classes were willing to
accept one major social-economic aspect: the greater use of
State power on behalf of the masses who now formed the bulk
of the electorate. But there was no agreement on the
degree of use of State power or on the quality or degree of
democracy attained by 1885--nor even the desirability of
more. Already the lines of opposition on the larger nature
of democracy were forming. Already the future was being
formed.
It is true that the mass democracy of the 20th cen
tury was still far removed. Universal suffrage was a long
way off; property remained a qualification for the vote.
England, in the words of the later Fabian socialist George
Bernard Shaw, had not yet leaped "from the frying pan to
the fire"; it had not yet fallen into the "delusion" of
giving votes to everybody in order to attain democracy—
3
which would "kill it dead." There were still degrees of
^Everybody's Political What’s What? (New York,
1944), p. 40.
304
:suffrage. Class lines were still firmly drawn; one man was
jnot as good as another. Wealth and property retained their
places. But clouds were forming, the wind rising. Labor
was to require another fifteen years before it formed its
own party and entered politics. Union ranks were to grow
steadily in the meantime; the socialist appeal was to widen
and deepen in the 1880's. Thus strengthened, labor was to
press hard in the early 1900's for that economic and social
welfare legislation which, followed by a terrible war,
really marks the death of liberal England and the emergence
of a new society. In short, there was something less than
thirty years to go in that transition period that Mill had
foreseen. There was not quite a generation left before old
Soames Forsyte, the "man of property," would lament that
"stinking democracy" had come, that his family had "shot
its bolt," that their possessive instinct was dying out.
If England was not yet the social-democratic state
of the 20th century, however, its character was being
formed by 1885. Having accepted democracy, the governing
classes tried to determine as best they might what should
and perhaps would be the best approach to the new age.
They formulated programs, and the margin for disagreement
remained wide. Radical thought optimistically urged men on
to the green hills of the Utilitarian, welfare state ahead.
Liberals, in general, while willing to proceed along that
305
road with some caution, emphasized the need for maintaining
a sense of personal responsibility in the enfranchised
masses. Conservatives, tending to see more quicksand than
greenery in the social welfare state, put more stress on
the older liberal dogmas of freedom and self-help, and
countered with a program of local self-government in a new
imperial framework.
Seeing the future open before them the left wing of
the Liberal party rushed to introduce it. Trade unionists
and labor leaders like Henry Broadhurst confidently
asserted that the Radical Programme would be the yardstick
of future legislation, that candidates would at least have
to "come up to the Radical platform," that henceforth there
would be a closer check on members of Parliament, and that
rising labor members would be ready for executive work and
admission to the cabinet.^ Chamberlain, of course, con
tinued his attack on property, threatening its future with
visions of working class justice. Legislation, he promised,
would be increasingly directed to social objects in order
Ito attain the greatest happiness of the masses, the fullest
}
enjoyment for their lives. It would be difficult, it would
take continued pressure, to reassert communal rights over
those of private ownership. But it would be done; for
4
"Ideas of the New Voters," Fortnightly. 43 (Feb. 1,
1885), 149-67.
306!
society owed the worker far more than the mere toleration
it had granted him in the past. In a taunting challenge
that called for an account— dearly paid in the 20th cen
tury- -he demanded: "What ransom would property pay for the |
security it enjoyed?" And some of his followers were loath
to wait long for delivery. The death knell of the laissez-j
faire system had been rung, announced the editor of the
Fortnightly--though he quickly added that the socialistic
legislation of the Radicals would not be communistic. Far
from reducing everything to a dead level, far from paralyz
ing private industry and effort, he assured his readers,
Radical legislation:
would preserve in their normal vigour and freshness
all the individual activities of English citizen
ship, and would do nothing more spoliatory than tax,
if— and in what degree— necessary, aggregations of
wealth for the good of the community.*
Like the Fabians, the Fortnightly insisted that the goals
of Radicalism were in line with the drift of legislation in
the preceding twenty-five years--"the intervention, in
other words, of the State on behalf of the weak against the
strong, in the interests of labour against capital, of want i
and suffering against luxury and wealth." j
Chamberlain and the Fortnightly Radicals, of course,
Iwere not half as revolutionary as conservatives feared them
! 5"The Revolution of 1884," 43 (Jan. 1, 1885), 7.
307 !
to be at times. They were rather like Theodore Roosevelt
and his New Nationalists in 1910-12, when the ex-president
jolted conservatives with his challenge to the capitalist
system demanding that human welfare be considered more
important than the rights of property. Both leaders
sounded at times as though they intended a frontal assault ;
i
on laissez-faire capitalism and that the socialized
j
welfare-state was at hand. But their rhetoric sometimes ■
belied their own characters. Although they were said to be
socialists, and sounded like it on occasions, they were
not. They were only trying to see working class problems
through their soundly middle class eyes. Moreover, neither
had the 20th century’s egalitarian spirit; neither was a
collectivist; neither was really a democrat. Nor did their
programs come at once. Their importance to the democratic
movement then lies more in their ability to mark the trend
of the times, to set precedents in opinions and feelings
for those who would apply and extend their programs after
a conservative interlude, for tho-se whose day in power was
yet to come. If they were not authentic godfathers of the j
; ]
future, they shaped it by setting examples. !
i i
: i
Radicalism provoked opposition from the more moder-
|ate bulk of the Liberal party as well as from outside the
ranks. Men like Lord Acton agreed with the editor of the
Fortnightly up to a point. It was true that "almost all
308 |
that has been done for the good of the people has been done
since the rich lost the monopoly of power, since the rights
£
of property were discovered to be not quite unlimited."
On the whole, moreover, the infusion of new elements into |
the electoral body had had a beneficent effect on the
legislation of the preceding half century. Success, in
|
fact, depended on preventing the upper class "from recover-j
; i
ing their lost ground." But success also depended on keep-;
ing the emphasis on the right place, on:
keeping alive in the masses the sense of their
responsibility, of their danger, of the condition
from which they had been rescued, of the objects
still before them, and the ancient enemy behind.'
Thus true liberalism largely consisted of promoting this
sense of self-reliance and self-help. And Radicalism, said
Edward Dicey who described himself as a "malcontent
liberal," was endangering this very quality with its re
liance on the power of the State. The drift of modern
liberalism, he protested, was for the State "to take a hand i
in the control of the masses," and in so doing to override .
the rights of the individual. Radicals tended to assert
; |
ithat the State could manage affairs better than the indi- j
Ividual. But the truth was, "if you once desert the solid j
I i
ground of individual freedom you can find no resting place
£
Letters to Mary Gladstone, p. 196.
7Ibid.. p. 197.
309;
I
o
till you reach the abyss of socialism."
|
Whether or not that was infallibly true, many in
both parties certainly feared it to be. Actually, as the
young conservative George Curzon reminded men, there was an I
all important area of doubt and debate. People were still |
confusing modified liberalism with true socialism, said the i
|
future Viceroy of India. i
Half the measures commonly described as social
istic, such as the Sanitary, Education, Adultera
tion, and Factory Acts, are only socialistic in
the means they employ, not in the end at which
they aim. Socialism proper means the interference
of the legislature with the object of artificially
redistributing wealth and equalising the material
condition of all classes in the community. But
the above measures were excused, and rightly so,
on the grounds of justice or of public expediency,
and are, therefore, deficient in the main requisite
of the Socialist school.9
Conservatism must oppose authentic socialism on the one
hand--not just state intervention--and laissez-faire on the
other. Both could be pushed to extremes. The necessity
for Government intervention might often be proved, but that
was no justification for socialism. In brief,
there is a borderland of debatable territory be
tween the frontiers of individual liberty and of j
State control, and the custody of this neutral zone
is now committed to the Conservative party. Upon
them it depends to save British Democracy from
! Q
"The Plea of a Malcontent Liberal," Fortnightly,
144 (Oct. 1, 1885), 467.
| ^"The Past and Future of Conservatism," Fortnightly.
143 (May 1, 1885), 631.
rushing into the snare which the Socialists are
spreading for it, when they extol State interven
tion as the speediest and most drastic remedy for
all social or political ill, and to cherish that
spirit of self-help, that free play of the indi
vidual character, and that heritage of personal
liberty which have been among the most efficient
causes of England's greatness.10
From Curzon to Churchill, the Prime Minister, the party was
to continue to counter "statism" with an emphasis on in- j
centive, local self-government, and imperial interests; it
would continue to act as a brake on political change.
If Radicals and Conservatives could differ widely on
the use of State power, perhaps an even deeper division
revolved around the old question of the role of man in
society, more specifically the role of the common man as
citizen and ultimate basis of the emerging democracy. The
degree of democracy attainable remained in question. Radi
cals, of course, were more optimistic than the others.
Much influenced by Mill and that current of idealism that
stems from the 18th century philosophes, they tended to
think of the average working man who had now gained the
vote as an underdeveloped trade unionist of the better
sort. Give him the time and he would prove an industrious j
rational creature capable of sitting down around a table
|and coming to agreement with others on matters of common
i . . . . . . . . ■
j
| ^"The Past and Future of Conservatism," Fort-
| nightly, 43 (May 1, 1885), 631.
311!
!
I
policy. Give him time and opportunity and he would educate
and discipline himself so that he might take an active
interest— even an active part— in government. The reader
may recall that cartoon of Punch* s referred to on page 107
(footnote 40) in which Bright's workman is portrayed as a
kind of pre-Raphaelite craftsman and Forster's laborer is
studying intently by candle light. Thus Radicals tended to
praise or defend the trade unions and caucuses as legiti
mate machinery for expressing the truly democratic opinion
of the common man.
Conservative views of the common man, however, were
much less optimistic and perhaps closer to the developments
of the 20th century. From Bagehot to Salisbury they were
inclined to see men moved more by emotions than reason, by
a desire for pleasure and security rather than any yearning
for active citizenship. Thus they objected to what they
thought were unrealistic Radical hopes and claims for the
worker, and they particularly questioned the designs of
those who claimed to speak for the average man. Lord
Curzon gave a description of what he thought was a trend of j
: the times, the manipulation of the masses:
; j
The influence of oratory upon the masses, the I
effect of a strong personality upon impressionable j
| and only half-educated electorate, the wide circu-
| lation of reported debates and speeches, the facili-
i ties of locomotion, which carry great speakers to
| every corner of the kingdom and great audiences to
j listen to them, the glare of publicity shed round
312
the life of public men by the emulous arts of the
press scribbler, the photographer, and the carica
turist, even the system of advertisement openly
practised by some eminent statesmen themselves—
all combine to elevate the man above the mob, and
to reproduce in modem England . . . that form of
government which only fell short of tyranny in
being hypothetically based upon popular consent
and constitutional order. 11-
Ins tead of a democracy, he held, England was really gov
erned by an oligarchy: the cabinet, and, by extension,
political "wire-pullers" in the country. Furthermore,
these oligarchs, in order to maintain their popularity,
"affect to receive orders from the very people to whom they
12
are in reality communicating them." Lord Curzon's view
was apparently not without some foundation when we recall
13
Edward Hallett Carr’s observation in the middle of the
20th century on the "nightmare spectacle" of an efficient
elite manipulating the masses.
There was something in both Radical and Conservative
views of the common man, of course; both were partly right
in their appraisals of his abilities and his future role.
The common man did seem to become more intelligent--perhaps
not wiser— but more informed about national and world
affairs; insofar as science gained greater sway, he became
1 -|
l "The Past and Future of Conservatism," Fort
nightly. 43 (May 1, 1885), 627.
j
I 12Ibid., p. 628.
| ^See above, p. 225.
313|
more rational; and he did take a more active interest in
government. Yet there was also grim truth to the conserva
tive spectre as the age of democracy became one of propa
ganda, advertising, and bigness.
Actually, at this stage of the democratic revolu
tion, it was still quite possible to entertain either the
most hopeful or the gloomiest views of the common man and
the value of his massed opinion. Perhaps no one illus- j
trated the matter more clearly than Gladstone himself after
he had summed popular opinion to his cause in the 1880
elections. Following the disaster of Khartoum in 1885,
only a few months after the successful passage of his third
Reform bill which he considered a reward to those who had
supported him, he was brought to "the lowest point in his
whole career."^ Popular opinion, which had been hailing
him as the Grand Old Man, turned on him hysterically as the
Murderer of Gordon, and, as his latest biographer observes:
It denoted a fundamental change in the climate of
contemporary thought. The mid-Victorian public,
in the first flush of its emancipation and en
franchisement, had responded readily to Gladstone's
flattering appeals to its reasoning faculties, and
Gladstone's main strength had been based on that
response. In politics, however, as in finance, bad
coinage drives out good, and the late-Victorian j
public seemed to grow less responsible and more
excitable every day. It was much more accessible
to emotional than it was to rational appeals, and
Gladstone in his old age was haunted increasingly
T /
Magnus, Gladstone, p. 322.
314
by the fear that the masses might in the end prove
to be just as corrupt and irresponsible as the
classes which, in his view, had succumbed long ago
to the temptations of wealth and power.
The fate of the Reviews themselves--whose power and
eminence was increasingly challenged after 1885--told much
the same story. For the rise of a mass electorate meant
the rise of a popular press and the decline of that digni
fied, responsible era of journalism which we have been
examining. Just as political power moved outside Parlia
ment by appeals for support from the masses, so the old
Reviews were by-passed by the new electorate, which looked
to the new journalism for the formation of its opinion, not
to the Edinburgh, Quarterly, and Fortnightly Reviews. The
character of that popular press gave little ground for
optimism about the common man as the basis of the new
society. Its key feature was commercialism; its pioneer
was Alfred Harmsworth, later Lord Northcliffe. In 1885 he
joined the staff of George Newnes who, in the year of Glad
stone’s second Midlothian campaign, founded a weekly news
paper called Tit-Bits to appeal to the newly enfranchised.
Capitalizing on what he learned there--that the democratic
electorate wanted short words, short sentences, and short
: i
paragraphs, in short, as little intellectual strain as
i
possible--Harmsworth founded his own paper in 1888.
i
i
' "^Magnus, Gladstone, pp. 322-3.
315 |
The whole attitude toward the reader was altered. Instead
of Hansard-like reporting and essay length articles, the
new reader was given what pleased him, what titillated his
imagination and all as briefly as possible. His news was
doctored and brightened, his emotions manipulated, and the
lengthy recording of Parliament's doings which required '
i
I
thought was abandoned. "Few features in the new journalism!
were to prove of deeper political import than its abandon
ment of the practise. . . . More than anything else, it
dethroned the house of commons.Perhaps the best that
could be said for the new journalism was that it narcotized
thought and at least did not stir the common man to revolu
tion as conservatives had feared.
The Reviews, though they did not cater to this
audience, were not exempt from the gravitational pull of
popular opinion. In 1889 a writer in the Fortnightly
lamented that:
The question is forced upon us whether, after all,
Carlyle and Ruskin are right when they assert that
the levelling up which results from the progress
of democratic institutions entails a corresponding
levelling down. There was a time when men of j
letters guided the public taste, and jealously
guarded the name of literature from profanation.
But we have extended the literary franchise, and
those who would succeed must learn to pander to
the new electorate.1?
■^Ensor, Modem England, p. 314 n.
■^"What the English People Read," 223 N.S. (Sept. 1,
11889), 307-21.
316 |
The Fortnightly, however, contributed to the revolution
in journalism. For by the end of the century literary
periodicals, following its lead, had come to include a
miscellany of poetry, fiction, and general articles along
with book reviews in a response to popular taste. The
Edinburgh and Quarterly continued to cling to the old tra
dition of limiting their articles to essays based on book
reviews, but in 1929 the Edinburgh ceased publication with
the comment that competition from the press and "different
conditions" had forced this end. The Fortnightly succumbed
after the second World War. Only the Quarterly survives to
this date, but now book reviews are confined to a section
at the end of the journal and the body of the text is com
posed of straight signed articles. In that feat of en
during over one hundred and fifty years lies one of the
best commentaries on conservatism in English life, and it
is testimony that England is still capable of adapting her
self to the new without losing the best of the old. Per
haps therein lies the success of her democracy.
In the conclusion of a work like this one is led to j
ask whether or not there is a dialectic of opinion some-
:where near the heart of every historical period that both
ireveals and helps mould its character--and thus its fate.
I
I Looking backward from 1885 one can see this opposition and
junion of ideas at work in the whole twenty year period
317 i
I
of the history of the idea of democracy. The character of ,
England and the direction of its growth can be seen in this^
play of the Radical, Whig, and Conservative mind. Indeed,
perhaps this is the best place to observe the story. For
history is like tragic drama. It is the story of men, not
inanimate phenomena that the scientist may deal with; it
deals with human hopes and aspirations as well as human
deeds; it deals with their responses to the world about
them. The plot then is the flow of events, and the revela
tion of character, the beauty and meaning of the story,
comes from the response of individuals to the events, par
ticularly that of the creative minority. These events are
the facts of environment continually presented to the
governing classes and appearing as a series of public
issues. These are not seen clearly; they cannot be seen as
they are. They are interpreted and expressed by human
beings with desires and apprehensions thus revealing the
character of the spokesman and those who accept his view.
This intellectual response encounters other interpreta
tions, and out of their interplay come the hopes, fears j
and motivation that influence those who pass laws. Men
really do get the kind of government they deserve.
The response of the Radical mind had been to move
more rapidly away from the prevailing orthodox liberal
position of the 1860’s toward a democratic socialist point
318
of view. It had sided with what it considered the demo
cratic forces of the American North and the French Republic
in their civil wars. In their victory was read a triumph
of democracy. Throughout this period, in all the reform
bills, it pressed for a steady widening of the suffrage,
though there was a distinct element of distrust in the
beginning for anything like full adult suffrage and it did
not go so far as to advocate universal suffrage. Mill had
few supporters on the idea of giving votes to women. Quite
naturally Radicals were pleased with Disraeli’s social
legislation on behalf of the worker, but were scarcely in
sympathy with his paternalism. The Radical mind pressed
for opening the careers to talents, providing the oppor
tunities for the average man to master his own fate through
better education, union organization, and political
activity. Thus it demanded more direct power for public
opinion, applauded the machinery of democratic politics,
and came closest to socialism. Armed with a Programme, the
Radical mind saw 1885 as merely a beginning for the next
plunge toward democracy.
Whig-Liberals, though like the conservatives in
their sympathies with the anti-democratic elements of the
American and French civil wars, were more willing to forget
:the past and welcome the return to normalcy of those socie-
i
l
I ties. In the issues of electoral reform, this cautious,
319 |
middle-of-the-road mind favored admitting only the "best" j
|
of the workers— that is, those having the middle class !
virtues of thrift, self-help, industry and sobriety. They
scorned Disraeli’s Tory Democracy, though what they ob-
i
jected to was not so much the social justice in it but the
elements of imperialism, emotionalism, and royal power.
Like the conservatives, though not as bitterly, the Whig-
Liberal mind opposed socialism--even in modified forms--and!
held a respectful distrust for the democratic machinery of j
parties and public opinion. By 1885, they were quite
willing, indeed, they thought it was necessary, for another
advance toward democracy.
The conservative mind saw in the American and French
civil wars examples of all the violent excess and evils of
democracy. In the three reform bills of 1865-67 it opposed
anything that looked to be a concession to democracy. Then
the idea of a conservative democracy became more alluring
to many, and, having made a greater "leap" toward democracy
than any expected, by the time of Disraeli’s great adminis-j
tration, paternalism and social justice were deemed con-
|sistent with both older aristocratic concepts of government j
I
; t
and the newer idea of democracy. Beyond this the conserva- j
| tive mind was reluctant to go. Socialism it flatly opposed;
;and, while conceding the power of public opinion, con-
|servatives sought to hold it in check by maintaining the
independence of the executive, members of Parliament, and
the power of the Crown. It heaped abuse on the caucus
organizers of the public mind--and grudgingly respected
them. By the mid 1880's, conservatives still opposed these
elements of the new society, but accepted the arrival of
democracy and formulated a plan for the future.
Thus the tension of Radical and Conservative thought,
moderated by middle-of-the-roadism, had shaped that democ
racy attained by 1885: it was neither a simple, clear
triumph of popular sovereignty nor an unyielding preserva
tion of the status quo. Some of the old institutions,
Parliament and political parties, for example, had been
greatly modified so that there was already something of the
20th century's mass democracy; yet obviously England had
a long way to go in that direction, for even the Radicals
distrusted a rootless, unpropertied electorate. Conserva
tives had their share of credit too. Indeed, in the hour
of Radical victory, England was still essentially conserva
tive. The governing classes had agreed to extend general
well-being as widely as they could, Utilitarianism had been
accepted; yet Englishmen still prized personal responsi
bility and individual freedom. In short, both sides pre
vailed. Thus the march toward democracy had been neither
j
| a sudden plunge like that of the French nor that stolid
j
| preservation of paternalism cloaked by a fig leaf of the
321
Germans. Gradualism was the characteristic quality of
Englishmen.
In conclusion then, it is clear to this writer that
what men thought was the nature and future of democracy,
what explained their allegiance to one party or another,
what led them to follow one group of men or another was
really of the essence of the history of the period. It was
in the dialectic play of their minds--both on points of
agreement and even more on points of disagreement— that one
could find springs of action. Thus a mere narration of the
events and issues that excited the public mind was not suf
ficient; what men thought these issues implied, what they
thought they were doing when they acted, had also to be
narrated. For although men see through a glass darkly,
they do see something; their images do bear a semblance to
reality; if they choose and act, they make history.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. Primary Sources
A. Periodicals (English editions):
The Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal
The Quarterly Review
The Fortnightly Review
B. Additional periodical literature consulted
(English editions):
The Contemporary Review
The National Review
The Nineteenth Century
Punch
Annual Register
The Times
C. Official:
Parliamentary Debates (Hansard)
D. Books:
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M.P. "Author’s Popular Edition." Edited by
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323
324 |
!
i
Chamberlain, Joseph. A Political Memoir: 1880-92.
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i
. Considerations on Representa-
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325 |
i
For the history of England and for very fine
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i
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Asset Metadata

Creator Rygh, Andrew Robert (author)

Core Title English Periodicals And The Democratic Movement: 1865-1885

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program History

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag History, modern,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Bowman, Francis J. (committee chair), Holmen, Milton G. (committee member), Kooker, Arthur R. (committee member), Van Alstyne, Richard W. (committee member), Wallbank, Thomas Walter (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-73910

Unique identifier UC11356835

Identifier 6004469.pdf (filename),usctheses-c18-73910 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 6004469.pdf

Dmrecord 73910

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Rygh, Andrew Robert

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA