From 1696 to 1701 the Whigs were in office. Then on the death of William and the accession of Anne, Tory ministers were included in the government, and for seven years the Cabinet was composite again. But Marlborough and Godolphin found that if they were to remain in power it must be by the support of the Whigs, who had made the support of the war against France a party question; and from 1708 to 1710 the ministry was definitely Whig. By 1710 the war had ceased to be popular, and the general election of that year sent back a strong Tory majority to the House of Commons, with the result that the Tory leaders, Harley (Earl of Oxford) and Henry St. John (Bolingbroke) took office. The Tories fell on the death of Anne, because their plot to place James (generally called the Chevalier or the old Pretender), the Queen's half-brother, on the throne was defeated by the readiness of the Whig Dukes of Somerset and Argyll to proclaim George, Elector of Hanover, King of England. By the Act of Settlement, 1701, Parliament had decided that the Crown should pass from Anne to the heirs of Sophia, Electress of Hanover and daughter of James I.; and the fact that the Chevalier was a Catholic made his accession impossible according to law, and the policy of Bolingbroke highly treasonable.

George I. could not speak English, and relied entirely on his Whig ministers. Bolingbroke fled to the Continent, but was permitted to return from exile nine years later. Oxford was impeached and sent to the Tower. The Whigs were left in triumph to rule the country for nearly fifty years—until the restiveness of George III. broke up their dominion—and for more than twenty years of that period Walpole was Prime Minister. Cabinet government—that is, government by a small body of men, agreed upon main questions of policy, and commanding the confidence of the majority of the House of Commons—was now in full swing, and in spite of the monarchist revival under George III., no King henceforth ever refused consent to a Bill passed by Parliament.

The Whigs did nothing in those first sixty years of the eighteenth century to make the House of Commons more representative of the people. They were content to repeat the old cries of the Revolution, and to oppose all proposals of change. But they governed England without oppression, and Walpole's commercial and financial measures satisfied the trading classes and kept national credit sound.

WALPOLE'S RULE

Walpole remained in power from 1720 to 1742 by sheer corruption—there was no other way open to him. He laughed openly at all talk of honesty and purity, and his influence lowered the whole tone of public life.[68] But he kept in touch with the middle classes, was honest personally, and had a large amount of tact and good sense. His power in the House of Commons endured because he understood the management of parliamentary affairs, and had a genius for discerning the men whose support he could buy, and whose support was valuable.

George III. went to work in much the same way as Walpole had done, and only succeeded in breaking down the power of the Whig houses by using the same corrupt methods that Walpole had employed. The "King's friends," as they were called, acted independently of the party leaders, and in the pay of the King were the chief instrument of George III.'s will.

THE CHANGE IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS

But George III. not only turned the Whigs out of office, he altered permanently the political complexion of the House of Lords. From the time of the Revolution of 1688 to the death of George II. in 1760, the Lords were Whiggish, and the majority of English nobles held Whig principles. They were, on the whole, men of better education than the average member of the House of Commons, who was in most cases a fox-hunting squire, of the Squire Western type. The House of Lords stood in the way of the Commons when, in the Tory reaction of 1701, the Commons proposed to impeach Somers, the Whig Chancellor, a high-minded and skilful lawyer, "courteous and complaisant, humane and benevolent," for his share in the Second Partition Treaty of 1699, and this was the beginning of a bitter contest between the Tory Commons and the Whig Lords. An attempt was made by the Commons to impeach Walpole on his fall in 1742, but the Lords threw out a Bill proposing to remit the penalties to which his prosecutor might be liable, and the King made Walpole a peer. George III., by an unsparing use of his prerogative, changed the character and politics of the Upper House. His creations were country gentlemen of sufficient wealth to own "pocket" boroughs in the House of Commons, and lawyers who supported the Royal prerogative.[69]

From George III.'s time onward there has always been a standing and ever-increasing majority of Tory peers in the House of Lords. And while the actual number of members of the Upper House has been enlarged enormously, this majority has became enlarged out of all proportion. Liberal and Tory Prime Ministers were busy throughout the nineteenth century adding to the peerage—no less than 376 new peers were created between 1800 and 1907; but comparatively few Liberals retained their principles when they became peers, and two of the present chiefs of the Unionist Party in the House of Lords—Lords Lansdowne and Selborne—are the sons of eminent Liberals.

So it has come about that while the House of Commons has been steadily opening its doors to men of all ranks and classes, and in our time has become increasingly democratic in character, the House of Lords, confined in the main to men of wealth and social importance, has become an enormous assembly of undistinguished persons, where only a small minority are active politicians, and of this minority at least three-fourths are Conservatives.

This change in the House of Lords began, as we have seen, in the reign of George III., when the Whig ascendancy in Parliament had passed. But the Whigs did nothing during their long lease of power to bring democracy nearer, and were entirely contemptuous of popular aspirations. At the very time when the democratic idea was the theme of philosophers, and was to be seen expressed in the constitution of the revolted American colonies, and in the French Revolution, England remained under an aristocracy, governed first by Whigs, and then by Tories. It is true democracy was not without its spokesmen in England in the eighteenth century, but there was no popular movement in politics to stir the masses of the people, as the preaching of the Methodists stirred their hearts for religion. Democratic ideas were as remote from popular discussion in the eighteenth century as they had been made familiar by Lilburne for a brief season in the seventeenth century.

"WILKES AND LIBERTY"

A word must be said about John Wilkes, a man of disreputable character and considerable ability, who for some ten years—1763-73—contended for the rights of electors against the Whig Government. The battle began when George Grenville, the Whig Prime Minister, had Wilkes arrested on a general warrant for an article attacking the King's Speech in No. 45 of the North Briton, a scurrilous newspaper which belonged to Wilkes. Chief Justice Pratt declared the arrest illegal on the ground that the warrant was bad, and that Wilkes, being at the time M.P. for Aylesbury, enjoyed the privilege of Parliament. A jury awarded Wilkes heavy damages against the Government for false imprisonment, and the result of the trial made Wilkes a popular hero. Then, in 1764, the Government brought a new charge of blasphemy and libel, and Wilkes, expelled from the House of Commons, and condemned by the King's Bench, fled to France, and was promptly declared an outlaw. He returned, however, a year or two later, and while in prison was elected M.P. for Middlesex. The House of Commons, led by the Government, set the election aside, and riots for "Wilkes and Liberty" broke out in London. The question was: Had the House of Commons a right to exclude a member duly elected for a constituency?—the same question that was raised over Charles Bradlaugh, a man of very different character, in the Parliament of 1880. Again and again in 1768 and 1769 Wilkes was re-elected for Middlesex, only to be expelled, and finally the House decided that Wilkes' opponent, Colonel Luttrell, was to sit, although Luttrell was manifestly not chosen by the majority of electors. The citizens of London replied to this by choosing Wilkes for Sheriff and Alderman in 1770, and by making him Lord Mayor four years later. The Government gave up the contest at last, and Wilkes was allowed to take his seat. Besides vindicating the right of constituencies against the claim of Parliament to exclude undesirable persons, Wilkes did a good deal towards securing that right of Parliamentary debating which was practically admitted after 1771.

But the "Wilkes and Liberty" movement was no more than a popular enthusiasm of the London mob for an enemy of the Government, and a determination of London citizens and Middlesex electors not to be brow-beaten by the Government. Wilkes himself always denied that he was a "Wilkesite," and he had no following in the country or in Parliament.

* * * * *

CHAPTER VI

THE RISE OF THE DEMOCRATIC IDEA

THE WITNESS OF THE MIDDLE AGES

The idea of constitutional government has its witnesses in the Middle Ages, democratic theories are common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but it is not till the eighteenth century that France, aflame to realise a political ideal, proves that democracy has passed from the books of schoolmen and philosophers, and is to be put in practice by a nation in arms.

In the thirteenth century the friars rallied to Simon of Montfort and preached, not democracy, but constitutional liberty.[70] Thomas Aquinas, the great Dominican doctor, became the chief exponent of political theory, and maintained that sovereignty expressed in legislative power should be exercised for the common good, and that a mixed government of monarch, nobles, and people, with the Pope as a final Court of Appeal, would best attain that end.[71]

A hundred years later, John Ball and his fellow agitators preached a gospel of social equality that inspired the Peasant Revolt. But communism was the goal of the peasant leaders in 1381, and freedom from actual oppression the desire of their followers. No conception of political democracy can be found in the speeches and demands of Wat Tyler.

In the sixteenth century Robert Ket in Norfolk renewed the old cries of social revolution, and roused the countryside to stop the enclosures by armed revolt. And again the popular rising is an agrarian war to end intolerable conditions, not a movement for popular government.

THE "SOCIAL CONTRACT" THEORY

The theory of a pact or contract between the Government and the people became the favourite assumption of political writers from the sixteenth century onward, and it was this theory that Rousseau popularised in his "Social Contract," the theory, too, which triumphed for a season in the French Revolution.

The theory is, of course, pure assumption, without any basis in history, and resting on no foundation of fact. It assumes that primitive man was born with enlightened views on civil government, and that for the greater well-being of his tribe or nation he deposited the sovereign authority which belonged to himself, in a prince or king—or in some other form of executive government—retaining the right to withdraw his allegiance from the government if the authority is abused, and the contract which conferred sovereignty violated. It was not maintained that the contract was an actually written document; it was supposed to be a tacit agreement. The whole theory seems to have sprung from the study of Roman law and the constitutions of Athens and Sparta. Nothing was known of primitive man or of the beginnings of civilisation till the nineteenth century. The Bible and the classical literature of Greece and Rome are all concerned with civilised, not primitive, man, and with slaves and "heathens" who are accounted less than men. The "sovereign people" of Athens and Sparta became the model of later republican writers, while the choosing of a king by the Israelites recorded in the Old Testament sanctioned the idea, for early Protestant writers, that sovereignty was originally in the people.

The Huguenot Languet, in his Vindiciae contra Tyrannos (1579), maintained on scriptural grounds that kingly power was derived from the will of the people, and that the violation by the king of the mutual compact of king and people to observe the laws absolved the people from all allegiance.[72] The Jesuit writers, Bellarmine and Mariana, argued for the sovereignty of the people as the basis of kingly rule; and when the English divines of the Established Church were upholding the doctrine of the divine right of kings, the Spanish Jesuit, Suarez, was amongst those who attacked that doctrine, quoting a great body of legal opinion in support of the contention that "the prince has that power of law giving which the people have given him." Suarez, too, insists that all men are born equal, and that "no one has a political jurisdiction over another." Milton, in his "Tenure of Kings and Magistrates" (1649), had taken a similar line: the people had vested in kings and magistrates the authority and power of self-defence and preservation. "The power of kings and magistrates is nothing else but what is only derivative, transferred, and committed to them in trust from the people to the common good of all, in whom the power yet remains fundamentally, and cannot be taken from them without a violation of their natural birthright." Hooker, fifty years earlier (1592-3), in his "Ecclesiastical Polity," Book I., had affirmed the sovereignty or legislative power of the people as the ultimate authority, and had also declared for an original social contract, "all public regiment of what kind soever seemeth evidently to have risen from deliberate advice, consultation, and composition between men, judging it convenient and behoveful." Hobbes made the social contract a justification for Royal absolutism, and Locke, with a Whig ideal of constitutional government, enlarged on the right of a people to change its form of government, and justified the Revolution of 1688. The writings of Hobbes and Locke have had a lasting influence, and Locke is really the source of the democratic stream of the eighteenth century. It rises in Locke to become the torrent of the French Revolution.

But Huguenots and Jesuits, Hooker and Milton—what influence had their writings on the mass of English people? None whatever, as far as we can see. Milton could write of "the power" of "the people" as a "natural birthright," but the power was plainly in Cromwell's army, and "the people" had no means of expression concerning its will, and no opportunity for the assertion of sovereignty. Lilburne and the Levellers held that democracy could be set up on the ruins of Charles I.'s Government, and the sovereignty of the people become a fact; and with a ready political instinct Lilburne proposed the election of popular representatives on a democratic franchise. Cromwell rejected all Lilburne's proposals; for him affairs of State were too serious for experiments in democracy; and Lilburne himself was cast into prison by the Commonwealth Government. Lilburne's pamphlets were exceedingly numerous, and his popularity, in London particularly, enormous. He was the voice of the unrepresented, powerless citizens in whom the republican theorists saw the centre of authority. The one effort to persuade the Commonwealth Republic to give power to the people was made by John Lilburne, and it was defeated. The Whig theory that an aristocratic House of Commons, elected by a handful of people, and mainly at the dictation of the landowners, was "the People," triumphed. The bulk of the English people were left out of all account in the political struggles of Whigs and Tories, and democracy was not dreamed of till America was free and France a republic. The industrial revolution compelled the reform of the British House of Commons, and democracy has slowly superseded aristocracy, not from any enthusiasm for the "sovereign people," but from the traditional belief that representative government means the rule of the people.

Precedent, not theory, has been the argument for democracy in England.

THOMAS HOBBES (1588-1679)

The writings of Hobbes are important, because they state the case for absolute rule, or "a strong government," as we call it to-day. Hobbes was frankly rationalist and secular. Holding the great end of government to be happiness, he made out that natural man lived in savage ill-will with his fellows. To secure some sort of decency and safety men combined together and surrendered all natural rights to a sovereign—either one man, or an assembly of men—and in return civil rights were guaranteed. But the sovereignty once established was supreme, and to injure it was to injure oneself, since it was composed of "every particular man." The sovereign power was unlimited, and was not to be questioned. Whether monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy was the form of government was unimportant, though Hobbes preferred monarchy, because popular assemblies were unstable and apt to need dictators. Civil laws were the standard of right and wrong, and obedience to autocracy was better than the resistance which led to civil war or anarchy—the very things that induced men to establish sovereignty. Only when the safety of the state was threatened was rebellion justifiable.

At bottom, the objection to the theories of Hobbes is the same objection that must be taken to the theories of Locke and Rousseau. All these writers assume not only the fiction of a social contract, but a static view of society. Society is the result of growth: it is not a fixed and settled community. Mankind proceeds experimentally in forms of government. To Hobbes and his followers, security of life and property was the one essential thing for mankind—disorder and social insecurity the things to be prevented at all cost. Now, this might be all very well but for evolution. Mankind cannot rest quietly under the strongest and most stable government in the world. It will insist on learning new tricks, on thinking new thoughts, and if it is not allowed to teach itself fresh habits, it will break out in revolt, and either the government will be broken or the subjects will wither away under the rule of repression.

Hobbes may be quoted as a supporter of the rule of the Stuarts, and equally of the rule of Cromwell. Every kind of strong tyranny may be defended by his principles.

In the nineteenth century Carlyle was the finest exponent of "strong" government, and generally the leaders of the Tory party have been its advocates, particularly in the attitude to be taken towards subject races.

JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)

Locke, setting out to vindicate the Whig Revolution of 1688, rejects Hobbes' view of the savagery of primitive man, and invents "a state of peace, goodwill, mutual assistance and preservation"—equally, as we know to-day, far from the truth. Locke's primitive men have a natural right to personal property—"as much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property"—but they are as worried and as fearful as Hobbes' savages. So they, too, renounce their natural rights in favour of civil liberty, and are happy when they have got "a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power erected on it."

According to Hobbes, once having set up a government, there was no possible justification for changing it—save national peril; and a bad government was to be obeyed rather than the danger of civil war incurred.

But Locke never allows the government to be more than the trustee of the people who placed it in power. It rules by consent of the community, and may be removed or altered when it violates its trust. Hobbes saw in the break-up of a particular government the dissolution of society. Locke made a great advance on this, for he saw that a change of government could be accomplished without any very serious disturbance in the order of society or the peace of a nation. Hobbes did not believe that the people could be trusted to effect a change of government, while Locke had to justify the change which had just taken place in 1688.

Only when we have dropped all Locke's theories of primitive man's happiness, and the social-contract fiction, does the real value of his democratic teaching become clear, and the lasting influence of his work become visible.

Mankind is compelled to adopt some form of government if it is to sleep at nights without fear of being murdered in its bed, or if it wishes to have its letters delivered by the postman in the morning. As the only purpose of government is to secure mutual protection, mankind must obey this government, or the purpose for which government exists will be defeated. But the powers of government must be strictly limited if this necessary consent of the governed is to continue, and if the government has ceased to retain the confidence that gives consent, then its form may be changed to some more appropriate shape.

Now all this theory of Locke's has proved to be true in the progress of modern democracy. It was pointed out that the danger of his doctrine—that a nation had the right to choose its form of government, and to change or adapt its constitution—lay in the sanction it gave to revolution; but Locke answered that the natural inertia of man was a safeguard against frequent and violent political changes, and as far as England was concerned Locke was right. The average Englishman grumbles, but only under great provocation is he moved to violent political activity. As a nation, we have acknowledged the right of the majority to make the political changes that have brought in democracy, and we have accepted the changes loyally. Occasionally, since Locke, the delay of the government in carrying out the wishes of the majority has induced impatience, but, generally, the principle has been acted upon that government is carried on with the consent of the governed, and that the Parliamentary party which has received the largest number of votes has the authority from the people to choose its ministry, and to make laws that all must obey.

The power of the people is demonstrated by the free election of members of Parliament, and, therefore, democracy requires that its authority be obeyed by all who are represented in Parliament. There is no social contract between the voter and the government; but there is a general feeling that it is not so much participation in politics as the quiet enjoyment of the privileges of citizenship that obliges submission to the laws. The extension of the franchise was necessary whenever a body of people excluded from the electorate was conscious of being unrepresented and desired representation. Otherwise the consent of the voteless governed was obviously non-existent, and government was carried on in defiance of the absence of that consent.

It is not Locke's theories that have guided politically the great masses of the people, for Locke's writings have had no very considerable popularity in England. But it has happened that these theories have influenced the conduct of statesmen, and with reason, since they offer an explanation of political progress, and constrain politicians to act, experimentally indeed, but with some reasonable anticipation of safety to the nation. British statesmen and politicians have made no parade of Locke's opinions; they have done nothing to incur the charge of "theorist," but the influence of Locke can be seen all the same—chiefly in the loyal acceptance of political change, in the refusal to be shocked or alarmed at a "leap in the dark," and by a willingness to adjust the machinery of government to the needs of the time. In England Locke's influence has been less dynamic than static; it has helped us to preserve a moderation in politics; to be content with piecemeal legislation, because to attempt too much might be to alienate the sympathies of the majority; to keep our political eye, so to speak, on the ebb and flow of public opinion—since it is public opinion that is the final court of appeal; to tolerate abuses until it is quite plain a great number of people are anxious to have the abuse removed; and above all to settle down in easy contentment under political defeat, and make the best of accomplished reforms, not because we like them, but because a Parliamentary majority has decreed them.

For England, in fact, the essence of Locke's teaching has helped to produce a deference almost servile to political majorities and to public opinion, a reluctance to make any reform until public opinion has pronounced loudly and often in favour of reform, and an emphatic assurance that every reform enacted by Parliament is the unmistakable expression of the will of the people. Locke has discouraged us from hasty legislation and from political panics.

ROUSSEAU AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Locke's influence in France and in America has been altogether different. Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot were all students and admirers of Locke, and his political theories were at the base of Rousseau's "Social Contract." A return to nature, a harking back to an imaginary primitive happiness of mankind, the glorification of an ideal of simplicity and innocence,—supposed to have been the ideal of early politics—the restoration of a popular sovereignty built up on natural rights alleged to have been lost: these were the articles of faith Rousseau preached with passionate conviction in his "Discourses" and in the "Social Contract." Individual man was born naturally "free," and had become debased and enslaved by laws and civilisation. "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains," is the opening sentence of the "Social Contract." This liberty and equality of primitive man was acclaimed as a law of nature by eighteenth century writers in France, and to some extent in England too. Pope could write, "The state of nature was the reign of God." Instead of a forward movement the business of man was to recover the lost happiness of the childhood of the world, to bring back a golden age of liberty and equality. Locke's "state of peace, goodwill, mutual assistance, and preservation" is to be the desire of nations, and with wistful yearning Rousseau's disciples gazed on the picture painted by their master.

It was all false, all a fiction, all mischievous and misleading, this doctrine of a return to an ideal happiness of the past, and it was the most worthless portion of Locke's work. To-day it is easy for us to say this, when we have learnt something of the struggle for existence in nature, something of the habits and customs of primitive man, and something of man's upward growth. But Locke and Rousseau were born before our limited knowledge of the history of man and his institutions had been learnt; before science, with patient research, had revealed a few incidents in the long story of man's ascent. Even the history of Greece and Rome, as Rousseau read it, was hopelessly inaccurate and incomplete. Therefore, while we can see the fallacy in all the eighteenth century teaching concerning the natural happiness of uncivilised man, we must at the same time remember it as a doctrine belonging to a pre-scientific era. The excuse in France, too, for its popularity was great. Civilisation weighed heavily on the nation. The whole country groaned under a misrule, and commerce and agriculture were crippled by the system of taxation. It seemed that France was impoverished to maintain a civilisation that only a few, and they not the most useful members of the community, could enjoy.

How mankind had passed from primitive freedom to civilised slavery neither Locke nor Rousseau inquired. "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains," cries Rousseau, in sublime disregard of facts. For man was not born free in the ancient republics of Greece and Rome that Rousseau revered; children were not born free in his day any more than they are in ours; and any assembly or community of people necessarily involves mutual consideration and forbearance which are at once restrictive.

The truth is, of course, that man is not born free, but is born with free will to work out political freedom or to consent to servitude. He is not born with "natural" political rights, but born to acquire by law political rights.

The fiction of primitive man's happiness and of the natural goodness and freedom of man did little harm in England, for Locke was not a popular author, and Wesley's religious revival in the eighteenth century laid awful stress on man's imperfections. The sovereign people ruled in an unreformed House of Commons, and the "contract" theory was exhibited by ministers holding office on the strength of a majority in the Commons.

Rousseau's writings depicted, with a clearness that fascinated the reader, the contrast between the ideal state that man had lost and the present condition of society with its miseries and corruption; and by its explanation of the doctrines of a contract and the sovereignty of the people, suggested the way to end these miseries and corruptions. The "Social Contract" became the text-book of the men who made the French Revolution, and if the success of the Revolution is due to the teaching of Rousseau more than to that of any other French philosopher, the crimes and mistakes of the Revolution are directly to be traced to his influence, and this in spite of Rousseau's deprecation of violence.[73]

As there is a certain tendency in England to-day to attempt the resuscitation of Rousseau's theories of popular sovereignty and the natural rights of man, and as so distinguished a writer as Mr. Hilaire Belloc is at pains to invite the English working class to seek illumination from Rousseau and to proceed to democracy guided by the speculative political doctrines of the eighteenth century rather than on the tried experimental lines of representative government and an extended franchise, it is necessary to devote to Rousseau and his "Social Contract" more space than the subject deserves.

The "Social Contract" is full of inaccuracies in its references to history; it is often self-contradictory, and it has not even the merit of originality. From Hobbes Rousseau borrowed the notion of authority in the State; from Locke the seat of this authority; the nature of the original pact and of citizenship from Spinoza; from the Huguenot Languet the doctrine of fraternity; and from Althusius the doctrine of the inalienability of citizenship. Where Locke was content to maintain that the people collectively had the right to change the form of government, Rousseau would give the community continual exercise in sovereignty, while voting and representation are signs of democratic decadence in Rousseau's eyes. The sovereign people governing, not through elected representatives but by public meeting, has only been found possible in small slave-ridden states.

At the Revolution France had to elect its deputies. But the theory of the sovereignty of the people has over and over again, in France, upset the Government, and destroyed the authority of the deputies. In England we accept the rule of Parliament, and are satisfied that the election of representatives by an enfranchised people is the most satisfactory form of democracy, though we retain a healthy instinct of criticism of the Government in power. In France has happened what Locke's critics foretold: the sovereign people never wholeheartedly delegates its powers to its deputies, and indulges in revolution when impatient of government. During the Revolution the passionate clamour of the sovereign people overpowered the votes and voices of elected representatives, and revolution and reaction were the rule in France from 1793 to 1871.

We may be frankly against the Government all the time in England; we may resist it actively and passively, for the purpose of calling attention to some political grievance, some disability that needs removal. But we never forget that it is the Government, or believe that it can be overturned save by the votes of the electorate. At the time of the European revolutions of 1848, when crowns were falling, and ministers flying before the rage of the sovereign people, Chartism never seriously threatened the stability of the British Government, and its great demonstrations were no real menace to the existing order. Nothing seems able to shake the British confidence in its elected representatives, and in the Government that is supported by a majority of those representatives. We have never accepted the gospel of Jean Jacques Rousseau; Priestley and Price are almost the only names that can be mentioned as disciples of Rousseau before the advent of Mr. H. Belloc.

France, still following Rousseau, does not associate political sovereignty with representation as England does. It never invests the doings of its Cabinet with a sacred importance, and it readily transfers the reins of government from Ministry to Ministry. France has submitted to the sovereignty of an Emperor and to the rule of kings since the great Revolution, and though its Republic is now forty years old, and at present there are no signs of dictatorship on the horizon, the Government of the Republic is never safe from a revolutionary rising of the sovereign people, and only by the strength of its army has revolution been kept at bay. If Louis XVI. had possessed the army of modern France he too might have kept the revolution at bay. All this revolution and reaction, disbelief in the authority of representative government, and lively conviction that sovereignty is with the citizens, and must be asserted from time to time—to the confusion of deputies and delegates—is Rousseau's work, the reaping of the harvest sown by the "Social Contract." Let us sum up the character of Rousseau's work, and then leave him and his doctrines for ever behind us.

"Rousseau's scheme is that of a doctrinaire who is unconscious of the infinite variety and complexity of life, and its apparent simplicity is mainly due to his inability to realise and appreciate the difficulties of his task. He evinced no insight into the political complications of his time; and his total ignorance of affairs, together with his contempt for civilised life, prevented him from framing a theory of any practical utility. Indeed, the disastrous attempt of the Jacobins to apply his principles proved how valueless and impracticable most of his doctrines were. He never attempted to trace social and political evils to their causes, in order to suggest suitable modifications of existing conditions. He could not see how impossible it was to sweep away all institutions and impose a wholly new social order irrespective of the natures, faculties, and desires of those whom he wished to benefit; on the contrary, he exaggerates the passivity and plasticity of men and circumstances, and dreams that his model legislator, who apparently is to initiate the new society, will be able to repress all anti-social feelings. He aims at order and symmetry, oblivious that human nature does not easily and rapidly bend to such treatment. It is his inability to discover the true mode of investigation that accounts for much of Rousseau's sophistry. His truisms and verbal propositions, his dogmatic assertions and unreal demonstrations, savour more of theology than of political science, while his quasi-mathematical method of reasoning from abstract formulae, assumed to be axiomatic, gives a deceptive air of exactness and cogency which is apt to be mistaken for sound logic. He supports glaring paradoxes with an array of ingenious arguments, and with fatal facility and apparent precision he deduces from his unfounded premises a series of inconsequent conclusions, which he regards as authoritative and universally applicable. At times he becomes less rigid, as when (under the influence of Montesquieu) he studies the relations between the physical constitution of a nation, its territory, its customs, its form of government, and its deep-rooted opinions, or avows that there has been too much dispute about the forms of government. But such considerations are not prominent. In certain cases his inconsistencies may be due to re-handling, but he is said to have observed that those who boasted of understanding the whole contract were more clever than he."[74]

This may sound very severe, but it is entirely just. The "Social Contract" consists of four books: (1) The founding of the civilized state by a social pact. (2) The theory of the sovereignty of the people. (3) and (4). The different forms of government; the indestructible character of the general will of the community; and civil religion.

The whole work teems with generalisations, mostly ill-founded, and the details are not in agreement. The one thing of permanent value is the conception that the State represents the "general will" of the community. How that "general will" finds expression and gets its way is of great importance to democracy. Even more important is the nature of that "general will." Individualist as Rousseau was in his views about personal property (following Locke in an apparent ideal of peasant proprietorship), he insisted on the subjection of personal rights to the safety of the Commonwealth.

AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

The resistance of the American colonies to the British Government did not commence with any spirit of independence. The tea incident at Boston took place in 1773, and it was not till three years later that the Declaration of Independence was drawn up. The Whig principles of 1688 are at the foundation of American liberties, and Locke's influence is to be seen both in the Declaration of Independence and in the American constitution. The colonists from the first had in many states a Puritanism that was hostile to the prerogatives of governors, and appeals to the British Government against the misuse of the prerogative were generally successful. The colonists wanted no more, and no less, than the constitutional rights enjoyed by Englishmen in Great Britain, and while the Whigs were in power these rights were fairly secure. George III., attempting a reversion to monarchist rule, drove the colonists to war and to seek independence; with the aid of France this independence was won.

If the French officers who assisted the Americans brought the doctrines of Rousseau to the revolted colonists, which is possible, it is quite certain that the establishment of the American Republic, and the principles of La Fayette and Paine, who had fought in the American War, were not without effect in France.

The American Constitution was the work of men who believed in democratic government as Locke had defined it, and America has been the biggest experiment in democracy the world has seen. The fact that the President and his Cabinet are not members of Congress makes the great distinction between the British and American Constitution. The College of Electors is elected only to elect the President; that done, its work is over. Congress, consisting of members elected from each state, and the Senate, consisting of representatives from each state, need not contain a majority of the President's party, and the President is in no way responsible to Congress as the British Prime Minister is to the House of Commons. The relation of the State Governments to the Federal Government has presented the chief difficulty to democracy in America.

The Whigs, or Republicans, as they came to be called, stood for a strong Federal Government; the Democrats were jealous for the rights of State Governments. The issue was not decided till the Civil War of 1861-1865, when the southern slave-holding States, seeing slavery threatened, announced their secession from the United States. Abraham Lincoln, the newly-elected President, declared that the Government could not allow secession, and insisted that the war was to save the union. Slavery was abolished and the Union saved by the defeat of the Secessionists; but for a time the fortunes of the Union were more desperate than they had been at any time since the Declaration of Independence.

Hamilton was the real founder of the Republican party, as Jefferson was of the Democrats. Both these men were prominent in the making of the American Constitution in 1787, and Jefferson was the responsible author of the Declaration of Independence. But Franklin and Paine made large contributions to the democratic independence of America.

THOMAS PAINE (1737-1809)

Edmund Randolph, the first Attorney-General of the United States, was on Washington's staff at the beginning of the War, and he ascribed independence in the first place to George III., but next to "Thomas Paine, an Englishman by birth."[75]

Paine's later controversies with theological opponents have obscured his very considerable services to American Independence, to political democracy in England, and to constitutional government in the French Revolution; and as mankind is generally, and naturally, more interested in religion than in politics, Paine is remembered rather as an "infidel"—though he was a strong theist—than as a gifted writer on behalf of democracy and a political reformer of original powers.

Paine—who came of a Suffolk Quaker family—reached America in 1774, on the very threshold of the war. His Quaker principles made him attack negro slavery on his arrival, and he endeavoured, without success, to get an anti-slavery clause inserted in the "Declaration of Independence." He served in the American ranks during the war, and was the friend of Washington, who recognised the value of his writings. For Paine's "Common Sense" pamphlet and his publication, "The Crisis," had enormous circulation, and were of the greatest value in keeping the spirit of independence alive in the dark years of the war. They were fiercely Republican; and though they were not entirely free from contemporary notions of government established on the ruins of a lost innocence, they struck a valiant note of self-reliance, and emphasised the importance of the average honest man. "Time makes more converts than reason," wrote Paine. Of monarchy he could say, "The fate of Charles I. hath only made kings more subtle—not more just"; and, "Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived."

Paine was in England in 1787, busy with scientific inventions, popular in Whig circles and respected. The fall of the Bastille won his applause, as it did the applause of Fox and the Whigs, but it was not till the publication of Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France," in 1790, that Paine again took up his pen on behalf of democracy.

Burke had been the hero of Paine and the Americans in the War of Independence, and his speeches and writings had justified the republic. And now it was the political philosophy of Hobbes that Burke seemed to be contending for when he insisted that the English people were bound for ever to royalty by the act of allegiance to William III.

Paine replied to Burke the following year with the "Rights of Man" which he wrote in a country inn, the "Angel," at Islington. It was not so much to demolish Burke as to give the English nation a constitution that Paine desired; for it seemed to the author of "Common Sense" that, America having renounced monarchy and set up a republican form of government, safely guarded by a written constitution, England must be anxious to do the same thing, and was only in need of a constitution.

The flamboyant rhetoric of the American Declaration of Independence—"We hold these truths to be self-evident—that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by the Creator with inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"—was not the sort of language that appealed to English Whigs (America itself cheerfully admitted the falseness of the statement by keeping the negro in slavery), and the glittering generalities of the "Rights of Man" made no impression on the Whig leaders in Parliament. Paine was back in the old regions of a social contract, and of a popular sovereignty antecedent to government. It was all beside the mark, this talk of a popular right inherent in the nation, a right that gave the power to make constitutional changes not through elected representatives in Parliament, but by a general convention. Parliament in the sight of the Whigs was the sovereign assembly holding its authority from the people, and only by a majority in the House of Commons could the people express its will. What made the "Rights of Man" popular with the English democrats of the "Constitutional Society" and the sympathisers with the French Revolution was not so much the old pre-historic popular "sovereignty" fiction—though it is true that there were many Englishmen, of whom Godwin was one, who could see no hope of Parliament reforming itself or of granting any measure of enfranchisement to the people, and therefore were willing to fall back on any theory for compelling Parliament to move towards a more liberal constitution—as the programme of practical reforms that was unfolded in its pages and the honest defence of the proceedings in Paris. That Parliament had no right to bind posterity, as Burke maintained, and that if the revolution of 1688 was authoritative, why should a revolution in 1788 be less authoritative? were matters of less interest than the clear statement of events in France, and the proposals for a democratic constitution in England and for social reform. Fifty thousand copies of the "Rights of Man" were quickly sold, and it obtained a large number of readers in America, and was translated into French. The total sales were estimated at 200,000 in 1793. Paine followed it up with Part II. while he was an elected member of the National Convention in Paris, and in 1792, when a cheap edition of the "Rights of Man" was issued, its author was tried for high treason, and in his absence convicted and outlawed.

Part I. of the "Rights of Man," while relying on the popular "sovereignty" fiction for getting a national convention, contained a careful definition of representative government. It showed that government by democracy—i.e. by popular meeting, suitable enough for small and primitive societies—must degenerate into hopeless confusion in a large population; that monarchy and aristocracy which sprang from the political confusion of the people must degenerate into incapacity. A representative government was the control of a nation by persons elected by the whole nation, and the Rights of Man were the rights of all to this representation.

As a nation we have never admitted any "natural" political rights to man, but we have steadily insisted on the constitutional right of representation in Parliament to those who possess a fixed abode and contribute by taxation to the national revenue.

Paine attacked all hereditary authority and all titles, but approved a double chamber for Parliament. He claimed that the whole nation ought to decide on the question of war with a foreign country, and urged that no member of Parliament should be a government pensioner.

In Part II. there is a confident announcement that "monarchy and aristocracy will not continue seven years longer in any of the enlightened countries of Europe," so sure was Paine that civilised mankind would hasten to follow the examples of France and America, and summon national conventions for the making of republican constitutions. As the old form of government had been hereditary, the new form was to be elective and representative. The money hitherto spent on the Crown was to be devoted to a national system of elementary education—all children remaining at school till the age of 14—and to old-age pensions for all over 60. It is in these financial proposals and the suggested social reforms that Paine is seen as a pioneer of democracy. A progressive income tax is included in this Part II., the tax to be graduated from 3d. in the L on incomes between L50 to L500; 6d. on incomes between L500 and L1,000; an additional 6d. up to L4,000; and then 1s. on every additional L1,000 until we get to an income tax of 20s. in the L on an income of L22,000 a year.

The popularity of Paine's proposals in England and the Reign of Terror in France frightened the British Government into a policy of fierce persecution against all who bought, sold, lent or borrowed the "Rights of Man." "Constitutional Societies" were suppressed, and all who dared openly express sympathy with revolutions or republics were promptly arrested.

Paine, outlawed by the British Government, contended in the National Convention for a republican constitution for France, did his best to prevent the execution of Louis XVI., fell with the Girondins, was thrown into prison, and only escaped with his life by an accident. Then, under the very shadow of the guillotine Paine wrote his "Age of Reason," to recall France from atheism to a mild humanitarian theism. This book was fatal to Paine's reputation. Henceforth the violent denunciation of theological opponents pursued him to the grave, and left his name a byword to the orthodox. As Paine's contribution to the body of democratic belief in the "Rights of Man" was submerged in the discussion on his religious opinions, so was his early plea for what he called "Agrarian Justice." On his release from a prison cell in the Luxembourg, in 1795, Paine published his "Plan for a National Fund." This plan was an anticipation of our modern proposals for Land Reform. Paine urged the taxation of land values—the payment to the community of a ground-rent—and argued for death duties as "the least troublesome method" of raising revenue. It was in the preface to this pamphlet on "Agrarian Justice" that Paine replied to Bishop Watson's sermon on "The Wisdom and Goodness of God in having made both Rich and Poor." "It is wrong," wrote Paine, "to say God made rich and poor; He made only male and female, and gave them the earth for their inheritance."

Napoleon organised the plebiscite, which conferred on him the Consulate for life, in 1802, and the French Revolution and Constitution making having yielded to a military dictatorship, Paine returned to America, and died in New York in 1809.

MAJOR CARTWRIGHT AND THE "RADICAL REFORMERS"

John Cartwright, the "Father of Reform," is notable as the first of the English "Radical Reformers." His direct influence on politics was small—none of his writings had the success of the "Rights of Man"—but, like Paine, he laboured to turn England by public opinion from aristocracy to democracy, and for more than forty years Cartwright was to the fore with his programme of Radical reform. The problem for Cartwright and the Radical reformers was how to get the changes made which would give political power to the people—with whom was the sovereignty, as they had learnt from Locke—and make Parliament the instrument of democracy. A hundred years and more have not sufficed to get this problem answered to everybody's satisfaction, but in the latter part of the eighteenth century, to the minds of simple, honest men, it seemed enough that the argument should be stated plainly and reasonably; it would follow that all mankind would be speedily convinced; so great was the faith in the power of reason.

What neither Cartwright nor Paine understood was, that it was not the reasonableness of a proposed reform but the strength of the demand that carried the day. The revolt and independence of the American Colonies were not due to a political preference for a republic, but were the work of public opinion driven by misgovernment to protest. The difficulty in England was that the mass of people might be in great wretchedness, badly housed, ill-fed, and generally neglected, but they were not conscious of any desire for democracy. They were against the government, doubtless, and willing enough, in London, to shout for "Wilkes and Liberty," but the time had not yet come for the working class to believe that enfranchisement was a remedy for the ills they endured.

Major Cartwright was an exceedingly fine type of man; conscientious, public spirited, humane, and utterly without personal ambition. He resigned his commission in the Navy because he believed it wrong to fight against the American Colonies, and he organised a county militia for the sake of national defence. On the pedestal beneath his statue in Cartwright Gardens, just south of Euston Road, in London, the virtues of the "Father of Reform" are described at length, and he is mentioned as "the firm, consistent and persevering advocate of universal suffrage, equal representation, vote by ballot, and annual Parliaments." It was in 1777 that Cartwright published his first pamphlet entitled "Legislative Rights Vindicated," and pleaded for "a return to the ancient and constitutional practice of Edward III." and the election of annual Parliaments. Long Parliaments were the root of all social political evil, Cartwright argued. War, national debt, distress, depopulation, land out of cultivation, Parliamentary debate itself become a mockery—these calamities were all due to long Parliaments; and would be cured if once a year—on June 1st—a fresh Parliament was elected by the votes of every man over eighteen—by ballot and without any plural voting—and a payment of two guineas a day was made to members on their attendance. Of course, Cartwright could not help writing "all are by nature free, all are by nature equal"—no political reformer in the eighteenth century could do otherwise—but, unlike his contemporaries, the Major was a stout Christian, and insisted that as the whole plan of Christianity was founded on the equality of all mankind, political rights must have the same foundation. By the political axiom that "no man shall be taxed but with his own consent, given either by himself or his own representative in Parliament," Cartwright may be quoted as one who had some perception of what democracy meant in England; but he is off the track again in arguing that personality, and not the possession of property, was the sole foundation of the right of being represented in Parliament. It was the possession of property that brought taxation, and with taxation the right to representation. We cannot repeat too often that in England the progress to democracy has never been made on assumptions of an abstract right to vote. We have come to democracy by experience, and this experience has taught us that people who are taxed insist, sooner or later, on having a voice in the administration of the national exchequer. But we have never admitted "personality" as a title to enfranchisement.



Cartwright followed with the multitude of political writers of his time to deduce a right to vote, and his deduction is as worthless as the rest of the a priori reasoning. But the brave old man—he was tried for "sedition" at the age of eighty in the Government panic of 1820—was an entirely disinterested champion of the poor and a real lover of liberty. He believed the affairs of government ought to be a matter of common concern, and that they were quite within the capacities of ordinary men. Cartwright's life—much more than his writings—kept the democratic ideal unshaken in the handful of "Radical Reformers" who survived the Tory reaction on the war with the French Republic in 1793, and his glowing enthusiasm helped to kindle the fire for political enfranchisement that was burning in the hearts of the manufacturing population by 1818. But in 1777 the electorate was not anxious for reform, and the unenfranchised gave no thought to their political disabilities. On the very day in 1780 that the Duke of Richmond proposed, in the House of Lords, a resolution in favour of manhood suffrage and annual Parliaments, the London mob, stirred up by the anti-Catholic fanaticism of Lord George Gordon, marched to Westminster with a petition to repeal Savile's Act of 1778, which allowed Catholics to bequeath land and to educate their own children. There was a riot, and in the course of the next six days the mob burnt Newgate, sacked Catholic chapels, and generally plundered and ravaged the City.

In the House of Commons Pitt made three attempts to get reform considered—in 1782, 1783 and 1785—and on each occasion his resolution was defeated by an overwhelming majority. After that Pitt made no further effort for reform, and from 1793 to 1795 the Government he led passed the Acts of repressive legislation which made all democratic propaganda illegal, and crushed all political agitation.

But "the Cause" was not dead.

Sir Francis Burdett, M.P. for Westminster, Henry Hunt, better known as "Orator Hunt," and Cobbett with his "Political Register," in various ways renewed the campaign for manhood suffrage, and the growth of the manufacturing districts made a change in the constitution of Parliament imperative.

Burdett was sent to the Tower in 1810 for contempt of Parliament, but lived to see the Reform Bill of 1831 passed into law, and died a Tory. Cobbett spent two years in prison, and became M.P. for Oldham in 1832. What Cobbett did with pen—and no man at that day wrote with greater ability for the common people, or with greater acceptance—Hunt did on the platform. Both strove to arouse the working class to demand enfranchisement. Hunt presided at the mass meeting at Peterloo, by Manchester, in 1819—an entirely peaceful meeting which was broken up by the military with some loss of life—and was sent to prison for two years for doing so. He also was elected M.P. (for Preston) in the first reformed Parliament.

Again the Government tried coercion, and after Peterloo, for the next few years, intimidation and numerous arrests kept down all outward manifestation of the reform movement.

In spite of this, the movement could not be stayed. Each year saw political indifference changed to positive desire for enfranchisement, and the British public, which, in the main, had been left untouched by the vision of a democracy and the call for a national convention and a new constitution, became impatient for the reform of Parliament and the representation of the manufacturing interest.

THOMAS SPENCE (1750-1814)

The name of Spence must be mentioned amongst those who preached the democratic idea at the close of the eighteenth century. A Newcastle schoolmaster, Spence, in 1775, expounded his "Plan" for land nationalisation on the following lines:—

"The land, with all that appertains to it, is in every parish made the property of the Corporation or parish, with as ample power to let, repair, or alter all or any part thereof, as a lord of the manor enjoys over his lands, houses, etc.; but the power of alienating the least morsel, in any manner, from the parish, either at this or any time thereafter, is denied. For it is solemnly agreed to, by the whole nation, that a parish that shall either sell or give away any part of its landed property shall be looked upon with as much horror and detestation as if they had sold all their children to be slaves, or massacred them with their own hands. Thus are there no more or other landlords in the whole country than the parishes, and each of them is sovereign lord of its territories.

"Then you may behold the rent which the people have paid into the parish treasuries employed by each parish in paying the Parliament or National Congress at any time grants; in maintaining and relieving its own poor people out of work; in paying the necessary officers their salaries; in building, repairing, and adorning its houses, bridges, and other structures; in making and maintaining convenient and delightful streets, highways, and passages both for foot and carriages; in making and maintaining canals and other conveniences for trade and navigation; in planting and taking in waste grounds; in providing and keeping up a magazine of ammunition and all sorts of arms sufficient for all the inhabitants in case of danger from enemies; in premiums for the encouragement of agriculture, or anything else thought worthy of encouragement; and, in a word, doing whatever the people think proper, and not as formerly, to support and spread luxury, pride, and all manner of vice."

No taxes of any kind were to be paid by native or foreigner "but the aforesaid rent, which every person pays to the parish according to the quantity, quality, and conveniences of the land, housing, etc., which he occupies in it. The Government, poor, roads, etc., are all maintained by the parishes with the rent, on which account all wares, manufactures, allowable trade employments, or actions are entirely duty free."

The "Plan" ends with the usual confidence of the idealist reformer of the time in the speedy triumph of right, and in the world-wide acceptance of what seemed to its author so eminently reasonable a proposal.

"What makes this prospect yet more glowing is that after this empire of right and reason is thus established it will stand for ever. Force and corruption attempting its downfall shall equally be baffled, and all other nations, struck with wonder and admiration at its happiness and stability, shall follow the example; and thus the whole earth shall at last be happy, and live like brethren."

The American War and the French Revolution hindered the consideration of Spence's "empire of right and reason," but, in the course of nearly forty years' advocacy of land nationalisation, Spence gathered round him a band of disciples in London, and the Spenceans were a recognised body of reformers in the early part of the nineteenth century. The attacks on private property in land, and the revolutionary proposals for giving the landlords notice to quit, brought down the wrath of the Government on Spence, and he was constantly being arrested, fined and imprisoned for "seditious libel," while his bookshop in Holborn was as frequently ransacked by the authorities.

Spence died in 1814, and the movement for abolishing the landlords in favour of common ownership languished and stopped. The interesting thing about Spence's "Plan" is its anticipation of Henry George's propaganda for a Single Tax on Land Values, and the extinction of all other methods of raising national revenue, a propaganda that, in a modified form for the taxation of land values, has already earned the approval of the House of Commons.

PRACTICAL POLITICS AND DEMOCRATIC IDEALS

Because we insist on the experimental character of our British political progress, and the steady refusal to accept speculative ideas and a priori deductions in politics, it does not follow that the services of the idealist are to be unrecognised.

The work of the idealist, whether he is a writer or a man of action—and sometimes, as in the case of Mazzini, he is both—is to stir the souls of men and shake them out of sluggish torpor, or rouse them from gross absorption in personal gain, and from dull, self-satisfied complacency. He is the prophet, the agitator, the pioneer, and after him follow the responsible statesmen, who rarely see far ahead or venture on new paths. Once or twice in the world's history the practical statesman is an idealist, as Abraham Lincoln was, but the combination of qualities is unusual. The political idealist gets his vision in solitary places, the democratic statesman gets his experience of men by rubbing shoulders with the crowd.

A democratic nation must have its seers and prophets, lest it forget its high calling to press forward, and so sink in the slough of contented ease. The preacher of ideals is the architect of a nation's hopes and desires, and the fulfilment of these hopes and desires will depend on the wisdom of its political builders—the practical politicians. Often enough the structural alterations are so extensive that the architect does not recognise his plan; and that is probably as it should be; for it is quite likely that the architect left out of account so simple a matter as the staircase in his house beautiful, and the builder is bound to adapt the plan to ordinary human needs.

The idealist has a faith in the future of his cause that exceeds the average faith, and in his sure confidence fails to understand why his neighbours will not follow at his call, or move more rapidly; and so he fails as a practical leader.

Here the work of the statesman and politician comes in. They are nearer to the mass of people, they hold their authority by election of the people, and they understand that the rate of speed must be slow. Under the guidance of their political leaders, the people are willing to move.

Sometimes the idealist is frankly revolutionary, is for beginning anew in politics, and starting society all over again. If the state of things is bad enough, he may get into power, as he did in France at the Revolution, and for a time the world will stagger at his doings. But there is no beginning de novo in politics, and the revolutions wrought by men who would give the world an entirely fresh start (to be distinguished from mere changes of dynasty, such as our English Revolution was) have their sandy foundations washed away by the floods of reaction.

There is no such absolute escape from the past for men or nations, and we can only build our new social and political order on the foundations of experience. But we may not be moved to build at all but for the prophet and the agitator, and therefore the instinct that makes governments slay or imprison the political agitator and suppress the writings of political prophets can be understood. For the existence of every government is threatened by prophets and agitators, and in self-defence it resists innovation. A healthy democracy will allow too many opportunities for popular expression to fear innovation; yet even under a democracy the prophets have been stoned—their sepulchres to be subsequently erected by public subscription and handsomely decorated.

Democracy owes too much to its prophets in the past not to rejoice at their presence in its midst. But it will prudently leave the direction of its public affairs to men who, less gifted it may be in finding new paths, are more experienced in making the roads that others have discovered fit for the heavy tread of multitudes.

* * * * *

CHAPTER VII

PARLIAMENTARY REFORM AND THE ENFRANCHISEMENT OF THE PEOPLE

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

The industrial revolution of the eighteenth century changed the face of England and brought to the manufacturing class wealth and prominence. The population of Lancashire was not more than 300,000 in 1760, the West Riding of Yorkshire about 360,000, and the total population of England 6,000,000. The inventions of Arkwright, Hargreaves, Crompton, Watt, and Cartwright revolutionised the cotton trade in the last twenty years of the eighteenth century, and increased enormously the production of woollen goods. England ceased to be mainly a nation of farmers and merchants; domestic manufacture gave way to the factory system; the labouring people, unable to make a living in the country, gathered into the towns. The long series of Enclosure Acts—1760-1843—turned seven million acres of common land into private property, and with this change in agrarian conditions and the growth of population England ceased to be a corn-exporting country, and became dependent on foreign nations for its food supply.

While these industrial and agrarian changes meant a striking increase in wealth and population, they were accompanied by untold misery to the common people.

"Instead of the small master working in his own home with his one or two apprentices and journeymen, the rich capitalist-employer with his army of factory hands grew up. Many of these masters were rough, illiterate and hard, though shrewd and far-seeing in business. The workmen were forced to work for long hours in dark, dirty and unwholesome workshops. The State did nothing to protect them; the masters only thought of their profits; the national conscience was dead, and unjust laws prevented them combining together in trade unions to help themselves. Women and children were made to work as long and as hard as the men. A regular system grew up of transporting pauper and destitute children to weary factory work. There was no care for their health. There were few churches and chapels, though the Methodists often did something to prevent the people from falling back into heathendom. The workmen were ignorant, brutal, poor and oppressed. There were no schools and plenty of public houses. In hard times distress was widespread, and the workmen naturally listened to agitators and fanatics, or took to violent means of avenging their wrongs, for they had no constitutional means of redress. Even the masters had no votes, as the new towns sent no members to Parliament. The transfer of the balance of population and wealth from the south and east to the north and Midlands made Parliamentary reform necessary."[76]

With this transfer of the balance of economic power came a good deal of rivalry between the manufacturers and the landed gentry, the latter becoming more and more Tory, the former more and more Radical. As all political power, in the main, was in the landowner's hands, men anxious to take part in politics eagerly bought up the small estates, and the old yeoman class disappeared, except in out-of-the-way places. These yeomen and small landowners had been the backbone of the Parliamentary Party in the days of the Stuarts, but they were left hopelessly behind in an age of mechanical inventions and agrarian changes, and were in most cases glad to sell out and invest their property in other ways.

The story of the misery of rural depopulation in the first half of the sixteenth century repeats itself at the close of the eighteenth.

"A single farmer held as one farm the lands that once formed fourteen farms, bringing up respectably fourteen families. The capitalist farmer came in like the capitalist employer. His gangs of poor and ignorant labourers were the counterpart of the swarm of factory hands. The business of farming was worked more scientifically, with better tools and greater success; but after the middle of the eighteenth century the condition of the agricultural labourer got no better, and now the great mass of the rural population were mere labourers.... Pauperism became more and more a pressing evil, especially after 1782, when Gilbert's Act abolished the workhouse test (which compelled all who received relief from the rates to go into the half-imprisonment of a poor-house), and the system of poor law doles in aid of wages was encouraged by the high prices at the end of the century. In 1803 one-seventh of the people was in receipt of poor law relief."[77]

But with all the considerable distress, in town and country alike amongst the working people, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, swift progress was taking place in agriculture and in manufactures. Only, the accumulated wealth fell into fewer hands, and the fluctuations in the demand for goods, caused partly by the opening up of new markets, brought successions of good times and bad times. "The workmen shared but partially in the prosperity, and were the first to bear the brunt of hard times."[78]

THE NEED FOR PARLIAMENTARY REFORM

The point for us to note here is that the changed economic conditions made Parliamentary reform a necessity, and brought the question of popular enfranchisement within sight. It was useless for Burke to maintain the incomparable beauty of the British constitution; English politicians might be indifferent to political theories of democracy, and heartily dislike any notion of radical change, but the abuses were too obvious to prevent reform.

Whatever the size of the county it returned two members elected by freeholders, and the cost of a county election was enormous. Some of the boroughs, especially in Cornwall, were tiny villages. Eighteen members were returned from such boroughs in that part of Cornwall which now returns one member for the Liskeard Division. The fields of Old Sarum belonged to seven electors and returned two members. As there was no habitation whatever in this "borough" of Old Sarum, a tent was put up for the convenience of the returning officer at election times. No general law decided the borough franchise. Local custom and various political and personal considerations settled who should vote for members of Parliament. Places like Westminster and Preston had practically manhood suffrage. In most of the "corporation boroughs" the franchise was restricted exclusively to freemen of the borough, and to the self-elected non-resident persons who composed the governing body before the Municipal Corporation Act of 1835. A small number of rich and powerful men really worked nearly all the elections. Seats were openly bought and sold, and a candidate had either to find a patron who would provide him with a seat, or, failing a patron, to purchase a seat himself. Fox first entered Parliament for the pocket borough of Midhurst, and Sir George Trevelyan has described how it took place. Midhurst was selected by the father of Charles James Fox as "the most comfortable of constituencies from the point of view of a representative; for the right of election rested in a few small holdings, on which no human being resided, distinguished among the pastures and the stubble that surrounded them by a large stone set up on end in the middle of each portion. These burbage tenures, as they were called, had all been bought up by a single proprietor, Viscount Montagu, who when an election was in prospect, assigned a few of them to his servants, with instructions to nominate the members and then make back the property to their employer. This ceremony was performed in March, 1768, and the steward of the estate, who acted as the returning officer, declared that Charles James Fox had been duly chosen as one of the burgesses for Midhurst, at a time when that young gentleman was still amusing himself in Italy."

Three years earlier Burke had entered Parliament as a nominee of Lord Rockingham's. Gibbon sat in the House for some years under patronage. Gladstone first became a member by presentation to a pocket borough, and later spoke in praise of this method of bringing young men of promise into Parliament. John Wilson Croker estimated that of six hundred and fifty-eight members of the House of Commons at the end of the eighteenth century, two hundred and seventy-six were returned by patrons. Men of more independence of mind who could afford to buy seats did so, and many of the reformers—including Burdett, Romilly and Hume—thus sat in the House.

MANUFACTURING CENTRES UNREPRESENTED IN PARLIAMENT

It was not so much that the landowning aristocracy were over-represented in Parliament by their control of so many pocket boroughs, as that great manufacturing centres were entirely unrepresented. The middle-class manufacturers had no means of making their influence felt in the unreformed House of Commons, for towns of such importance as Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham sent no representatives to Parliament. This meant that Parliament was out of touch with all the industrial life of the nation, and that nothing was done till after the Reform Act in the way of serious industrial legislation.

35 constituencies with hardly any voters at all returned 75 members 46 constituencies with less than 50 voters in each returned 90 " 19 constituencies with less than 100 voters in each returned 37 " 26 constituencies with less than 200 voters in each returned 52 " 84 male electors in other constituencies returned 157 "

The Reform Act of 1832 changed all this. It disfranchised all boroughs with less than 2,000 inhabitants—fifty-six in all; allowed one member only to boroughs with between 2,000 and 4,000; gave representatives to Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, and to several other large manufacturing towns and London boroughs; extended the county franchise to leaseholders and L50 tenants at will; and settled the borough franchise on a uniform qualification of occupation in a house of L10 rateable value. It also fixed two days, instead of fifteen, as the limit for county elections, and one day for boroughs.

THE PASSAGE OF THE GREAT REFORM BILL

The Reform Bill was not carried without much rioting in the country, and some loss of life.

The Duke of Wellington was at the head of the Tory Ministry in 1830; and though he declared in face of an Opposition that was headed by the Whig aristocrats, and included the middle-class manufacturers and the great bulk of the working class in the industrial districts of Lancashire, Yorkshire and the Midlands, that "no better system (of Parliamentary representation) could be devised by the wit of man" than the unreformed House of Commons, and that he would never bring forward a reform measure himself, and should always feel it his duty to resist such measure when proposed by others, yet, in less than two years after this speech Wellington's resistance had ended, and the Reform Bill was carried into law.

What happened in those two years was this: At the general election in the summer of 1831, the popular cry was "the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill."

"The whole countless multitude of reformers had laid hold of the principle that the most secure and the shortest way of obtaining what they wanted was to obtain representation. The non-electors felt themselves called upon to put forth such power as they had as a means to obtaining the power which they claimed." And the non-electors were enormously successful. For they "combined their will, their knowledge, and their manifest force in political unions, whence they sent forth will, knowledge, and influence over wide districts of the land. And the electors, seeing the importance of the crisis—the unspeakable importance that it should be well conducted—joined these unions."

The Reformers carried the day at the elections, and the new House of Commons passed the second reading of the Bill on July 8th, by 136: 367-231. On September 21st the third reading passed by 345 to 236. Then on the 8th of October the House of Lords threw out the Bill by 199 to 158, and at once fierce riots broke out all over the country, in especial at Derby, Nottingham, and Bristol.

At Derby the jail was stormed. At Nottingham the castle was burned, and of nine men subsequently convicted of riot, three were hanged. At Bristol, the jail, the Mansion House, the Customs House, the Excise Office, and the Bishop's Palace were burned, and twelve lives were lost in three days.

The new session opened in December, and again the Bill was introduced, and this time the second reading had a majority of 162: 324-162. The House of Lords hesitated when the Bill came up to them at the end of March, 1832; allowed the second reading to pass by 184 to 175, and then in Committee struck out those clauses which disfranchised the "rotten" boroughs—uninhabited constituencies like Old Sarum. Grey, the Whig Prime Minister, at once resigned, and the Duke of Wellington endeavoured to form a Tory anti-reform Ministry. But the task was beyond him, the temper of the country was impatient of any further postponement of the Bill. Petitions poured in urging Parliament to vote no supplies, and resolutions were passed refusing to pay taxes till the Bill became law.

On Wellington's failure to make a Government, William IV. had to recall Grey, and the Whigs resumed office with an assurance that, if necessary, the King would create sufficient peers favourable to reform, so that the Bill should pass.

The battle was over, the anti-Reformers retired, and on June 4th, 1832, the Reform Bill passed the Lords by 106 to 22, receiving the Royal Assent three days later.

The Whigs protested that the Reform Bill was a final measure, and Sir Francis Burdett, the veteran reformer, was content to vote with the Tories when the Act had become law. But there is no finality in politics, and the Reform Bill was only the removal of a barrier on the road to democracy. The Tories described the Bill as revolutionary, but as a matter of fact the Act of 1832 neither fulfilled the hopes of its friends nor the fears of its foes. What the Act did was to transfer the balance of power from the landed aristocracy, which had been in the main predominant since 1688, to the richer members of the middle class—the big farmers in the country, the prosperous shopkeepers in the towns. The working class was still voteless, and the old democratic franchise of Preston and Westminster was gone from those boroughs.

The first reformed Parliament met early in 1833, and the change in the character of the House of Commons was seen at once. Government accepted responsibility for legislation in a way that had never been known before. The New Poor Law, 1834, and the new Municipal Corporations Act, 1835, were the beginning of our present system of local government. Slavery was abolished in all British Colonies in 1833.

Greville, in his Memoirs, gives us an impression of the new regime in Parliament as it appeared to one who belonged to the old dethroned aristocracy.

"The first thing that strikes one is its inferiority to preceding Houses of Commons, and the presumption, impertinence, and self-sufficiency of the new members.... There exists no party but that of the Government; the Irish act in a body under O'Connell to the number of about forty; the Radicals are scattered up and down without a leader, numerous, restless, turbulent, bold, and active; the Tories, without a head, frightened, angry, and sulky."

THE WORKING CLASS STILL UNREPRESENTED

But the working classes were the really disappointed people in the country. They had worked for the reformers, and their energies—and their violence—had been the driving force that had carried the Bill into law. If their expectations were extravagant and their hopes over-heated, the more bitter was their distress at the failure of the Reform Act to accomplish the social improvements that had been predicted.

CHARTISM

So the working class in despair of help from the Government, decided to get the franchise for themselves, and for twelve years, 1838-1850, Chartism was the great popular movement. The Five Points of the People's Charter were proclaimed in 1838: (1) Universal Suffrage; (2) Vote by Ballot; (3) Annual Parliaments; (4) Abolition of Property Qualification for Members of Parliament; (5) Payment of Members. A Sixth Point—Equal Electoral Districts—was left out in the National Petition.

Although the Chartist demands were political, it was the social misery of the time that drove men and women into the Chartist movement. The wretchedness of their lot—its hopeless outlook, and the horrible housing conditions in the big towns—these things seemed intolerable to the more intelligent of the working people, and thousands flocked to the monster Chartist demonstrations, and found comfort in the orations of Feargus O'Connor, Bronterre O'Brien, and Ernest Jones.

The Charter promised political enfranchisement to the labouring people, and once enfranchised they could work out by legislation their own social salvation. So it seemed in the 'Forties—when one in every eleven of the industrial population was a pauper.

Stephens, a "hot-headed" Chartist preacher, put the case as he, a typical agitator of the day, saw it in 1839: "The principle of the People's Charter is the right of every man to have his home, his hearth, and his happiness. The question of universal suffrage is, after all, a knife-and-fork question. It means that every workman has a right to have a good hat and coat, a good roof, a good dinner, no more work than will keep him in health, and as much wages as will keep him in plenty."[79]

The lot of the labourer and the artisan was found to be worse than it was in the earlier years of the nineteenth century, before the great Reform Act had been passed.[80] And while the Anti-Corn Law League, the Socialist propaganda of Robert Owen, and the agitation for factory legislation, all promised help and attracted large numbers of workmen, the Chartist movement was by far the strongest and most revolutionary of all the post-reform popular agitations. Chartism went to pieces because the leaders could not work together, and were, in fact, greatly divided as to the methods and objects of the movement. By 1848 Bronterre O'Brien had retired from the Chartist ranks, Feargus O'Connor was M.P. for Nottingham—to be led away from the House of Commons hopelessly insane, to die in 1855—and Ernest Jones could only say when the Chartist Convention broke up in hopeless disagreement, "amid the desertion of friends, and the invasion of enemies, the fusee has been trampled out, and elements of our energy are scattered to the winds of heaven."

In spite of its failure, Chartism kept alive for many years the desire for political enfranchisement in the labouring classes. That desire never died out. Although Palmerston, the "Tory chief of a Radical Cabinet"—so Disraeli accurately enough described him—was Prime Minister from 1855 to 1865 (with one short interval), and during that period gave no encouragement to political reform, the opinion in the country grew steadily in favour of working-class enfranchisement. Palmerston's very inactivity drove Liberals and the younger Conservatives to look to the working classes for support for the measures that were planned. The middle class was satisfied that the artisans could be admitted to the franchise without danger to the Constitution. Palmerston's death in 1865 left the Liberal Party to Earl Russell's premiership, with Gladstone as its leader in the Commons. Reform was now inevitable.

The Bill as first introduced in 1866 was a moderate measure, making a L7 rental the qualification for a vote in the boroughs. It was too moderate to provoke any enthusiasm, and it was hateful to the old Palmerstonian Whigs and most of the Conservatives, who objected to any enfranchisement of the working class. By a combination of these opponents the Bill was defeated, the Liberals retired from office, and a Conservative ministry under Lord Derby, with Disraeli leading the House of Commons, was formed.

THE HYDE PARK RAILINGS (1866)

It was seen quickly that there was a very real demand for the enfranchisement of the town workman—the agricultural districts remained unawakened—and Reform Leagues and Reform Unions sprang up as they had done in 1831. Then in London came the incident of the Hyde Park railings, which gave a distinct impetus to the Reform movement. What happened at Hyde Park was this: the London Reform Union decided to hold a monster demonstration in Hyde Park on July 23rd, but the Chief Commissioner of Police had declared the meeting must not take place, and ordered the gates to be closed at five o'clock. Mr. Edmund Beales, and other leaders of the London Reform Union, on being refused admittance, drove away calmly to hold a meeting in Trafalgar Square, but the great mass of people remained outside the park, "pressed and pressing round the railings." Some were clinging to the railings; others deliberately weakened the supports of the railings. Park Lane was thronged, and all along the Bayswater Road there was a dense crowd. The line was too long for the police to defend, and presently, when the railings yielded to the pressure, the people poured in to the park.

"There was a simultaneous, impulsive rush, and some yards of railing were down, and men in scores were tumbling and floundering and rushing over them. The example was followed along Park Lane, and in a moment half a mile of iron railings was lying on the grass, and a tumultuous and delighted mob was swarming over the park. The news ran wildly through the town. Some thought it a revolt; others were of opinion it was a revolution. The first day of liberty was proclaimed here—the breaking loose of anarchy was shrieked at there. The mob capered and jumped over the sward for half the night through. Flower beds and shrubs suffered a good deal, not so much from wanton destruction, as from the pure boisterousness which came of an unexpected opportunity for horseplay. There were a good many little encounters with the police; stones were thrown on the one side, and truncheons used on the other pretty freely. A few heads were broken on both sides, and a few prisoners were made by the police; but there was no revolution, no revolt, no serious riot even."[81]

The Guards were called out, and a detachment arrived at the park, but the people only cheered the soldiers good-humouredly. Not even a blank cartridge was fired that day.

The Government, however, took the Hyde Park disturbance with extreme seriousness. "Nothing can well be more certain than the fact that the Hyde Park riot, as it was called, convinced Her Majesty's ministers of the necessity of an immediate adoption of the reform principle."[82] Disraeli, who in 1859 had proposed reform without getting any support, now saw that a great opportunity had come for a constructive Conservative policy, and boldly insisted to his party that Parliamentary Reform was a necessity. "You cannot establish a party of mere resistance to change, for change is inevitable in a progressive country," he told his followers.

All through the autumn and winter great demonstrations took place in the large towns and cities of the country in support of the demand for the enfranchisement of the workman, and when Parliament met in February, 1867, a Reform Bill was promised in the Queen's Speech. To Lord Derby the measure was frankly a "leap in the dark," and one or two Conservative ministers (including Cranborne, afterwards Lord Salisbury) left the Government in disgust. But the Conservatives generally chuckled at "dishing the Whigs," and the Bill, with considerable revision, was passed through both Houses of Parliament by August.

HOUSEHOLD SUFFRAGE

By the Reform Bill of 1867 all male householders in boroughs were enfranchised, and all male lodgers who paid L10 a year for unfurnished rooms. The town workman was enfranchised by this Act as the middle-class man had been enfranchised by the Act of 1832, and the electorate was increased from about 100,000 to 2,000,000. An amendment that women should not be excluded from the franchise was moved by John Stuart Mill, and defeated. Some redistribution of seats took place under the Act of 1867, eleven boroughs were disfranchised, thirty-five with less than 10,000 inhabitants were made single-member constituencies, and additional representation was given to Chelsea, Hackney, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Salford, Glasgow, Birmingham, Dundee, and Merthyr. "Thus was Household Suffrage brought in in the boroughs, and a great step was made towards democracy, for it was plain that the middle-class county constituencies could not last very much longer now that all workmen who happened to live in boroughs had their votes."[83]

The third Reform Act, giving household suffrage to the country districts, was passed by Gladstone in 1884, and it was followed by a Redistribution of Seats Act in 1885. By these two Acts the agricultural labourer was enfranchised, a service franchise was created for those who were qualified neither as householders nor lodgers, and the principle of single-member equal electoral districts—on a basis of 54,000 inhabitants—was adopted. Only twenty-three boroughs, the City of London and the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin, retained double-member representation. The membership of the House of Commons was increased from six hundred and fifty-eight to six hundred and seventy, the present total; and the franchise remains as it was fixed in 1885—occupation and ownership giving the right to vote.

From time to time, for more than a hundred years, a plea has been put forward for universal or adult suffrage for men on the ground of an abstract right to vote, but it has met with little encouragement.[84] There is, however, a wide feeling in favour of simplifying the registration laws, so that a three-months' residence, instead of, as at present, a year's residence from one July to the next, should be sufficient to qualify for the franchise. There is also a strong demand for "one man, one vote." At present, while no elector may give more than one vote in any constituency, he may, if he has property in various places, give a vote in each of these districts, and some men thus give as many as a dozen votes at a general election. This plural voting by property and residential qualifications in different constituencies is not customary in other constitutional countries, and a Bill for its abolition passed the House of Commons in 1906, but was rejected by the Lords.