and 1884-85; and in the two closing chapters I have ventured on a brief examination of two of the burning questions of the day. In regard to these topics-Labour Legislation and Foreign Policy—I have striven calmly to look facts in the face, and to inquire by the light of the teachings of the past, what is the significance of the present situation. In one respect, the present time seems opportune for some such inquiry as is hazarded in this little work. The lull in the strife of political parties affords a good opportunity for a quiet consideration of our actual position and a deliberate survey of the course of the struggle. That there has been a striking change in the relations of parties and the conduct of the fight will be evident to all who contrast the political speeches of to-day with the excited harangues of 1880-5; while those again will seem tame beside the fervid declamations of the "forties".

In my treatment of the more strictly historical parts of the subject, I have purposely given only the briefest reference to many politicians who figure largely in Parliamentary annals or in the gossip of Pall Mall. My desire has been rather to dwell on the efforts of humbler individuals, who stirred up the artisans of England to action which finally compelled responsible statesmen to listen to their demands. I have accordingly bestowed more attention on William Cobbett than on Viscount Melbourne, on Henry Vincent than on Lord John Russell. In some directions this little work essays to open up new ground, and where I have described well-known events I have endeavoured to invest them with a new significance by approaching them from the point of view of the workman's club rather than of the lobby of St. Stephen's. In relation to Free-trade, Irish affairs, educational efforts, and the work of several influential thinkers and statesmen, my narrative may seem incomplete; but these topics will be handled in other volumes of the series.

My indebtedness to other workers in this field is, I believe, everywhere acknowledged in foot-notes. For valuable advice on several topics I must express my grateful acknowledgments to Mr. G. Laurence Gomme, and to Messrs. C. V. Coates and G. W. Johnson, both of Trinity College, Cambridge.

BALHAM, S.W., October 15, 1897.

J. H. ROSE.

The Rise of Democracy.

Chapter I.

The Origin of English Radicalism.

Any inquiry into the course of democratic progress in England would be confessedly flimsy and superficial which did not endeavour, however briefly, to indicate the nature of the movement in its earlier stages. Is English democracy of home growth, or does it owe its chief impulse to the cognate movement in France? Was it propelled onwards by a conscious striving after new ideals, or was it merely the result of discontent aroused by material discomforts and unjust laws? Did our Radical reformers claim that they were initiating a new era for humanity at large, or were they content with redressing the ills of the time? To these and similar questions it is hoped that this little work will furnish some reply, not, as a rule, explicitly and in set terms, but rather by means of an unbiassed narrative which will leave the reader free to draw his own conclusions as to the drift of events, the full significance of which cannot as yet be fully realized.

A few words may not be out of place here to suggest one important difference which separates the democracy of the last hundred years from that of the ancient world. Popular government, as we now know it, aims at conceding full political rights and duties to all adult males who are not obviously disqualified properly to discharge

them. We should now deny the name of democrat to any who would withhold these rights from a majority of the adult men of the state. In the ancient world, on the other hand, popular government never contemplated, even as a possible contingency, that civic responsibility should ever be accorded to the slaves, on whom fell nearly all the burdens of menial employments. Government was therefore in the hands of a minority, sometimes of a small minority. Oftener still it was the tool of a faction; but there is no instance of a defeated faction deliberately enfranchising the hewers of wood and drawers of water in order to compass the overthrow of its successful rivals. Such a proposal would have been wholly unintelligible to the democrats of ancient Greece and Rome.1

The political and social problems which modern democracy has endeavoured to solve are therefore immeasurably wider and grander than any which came within the ken of the philosophers and statesmen of the ancient world. To what influence are we to attribute the broadening and humanizing tendencies of modern politics? Primarily to the love of individual liberty cherished by the Teutonic tribes who laid the foundations of a new social order throughout Western Europe. Their sense of the dignity of man as man, when strengthened by Christian teaching, opened up a new future, which was to receive its fullest and most unfettered development in England. It was here that representative government found its first complete expression in a national Parliament as the guardian of popular liberties—a fact which decisively answers the question as to the native origin of our democracy in its early or mediæval phase. But the question as to the origin of the great impulse towards popular government charac

1Cf. Aristotle's Nic. Ethics, bk. x. chap. 6: "No one allows a slave to share in happiness any more than in the life of a citizen ".