Democracy in Great Britain By J. HOLLAND ROSE, M.A. Late Scholar of Christ's College, Cambridge; author of HERBERT S. STONE & COMPANY CHICAGO & NEW YORK M DCCC XCVIII General Preface. men. As the present volume is introductory to the Victorian Era Series, it is proper to explain the purport of the series as a whole. It aims at describing in attractive and scholarly form the chief movements of our age and the lifework of its influential Each volume will deal with a well-defined subject, which it will exhibit in its historical setting and in its relation to present conditions. Collaboration, recognized as being an essential of modern historical work, has been adopted in this series, in that each volume will be the work of a writer who has made its subject a special study. This will, it is hoped, ensure the coherence of the individual volumes, and the unity and balance of the series as a whole. In this volume I have endeavoured to describe, as fully as limits of space permit, the course of the political movement which has profoundly modified the whole of our public life. One remark as to the usage of terms seems to be called for here Throughout my inquiry I have used the term democracy in its strict sense, as government by the people, and not in the slipshod way in which it is now too often employed to denote the wageearning classes. That this misuse of the term is responsible for much slipshod thought on political matters, will, I trust, be made clear in the latter part of this little work. The Radical movement attained strength and persistence in the first years of Queen Victoria's reign; and its peaceful character has been due in no small degree to the loyalty awakened by the Queen's personal character and life. But in order to understand the aims of the Radicals who drew up the Charter, it is necessary to review the trend of events during the preceding generation, and to connect the political history of the present reign with the social and economic problems which became an urgent part of practical politics on the conclusion of the great war. After tracing the origin and general course of the Chartist movement, I have endeavoured to show its connection with the latter-day Radicalism, which led up to the Reform Acts of 1867 |