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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19609-8.txt b/19609-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8f377a5 --- /dev/null +++ b/19609-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7291 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Rise of the Democracy, by Joseph Clayton + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Rise of the Democracy + + +Author: Joseph Clayton + + + +Release Date: October 23, 2006 [eBook #19609] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RISE OF THE DEMOCRACY*** + + +E-text prepared by Afra Ullah, Keith Edkins, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 19609-h.htm or 19609-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/6/0/19609/19609-h/19609-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/6/0/19609/19609-h.zip) + + + + + +THE RISE OF THE DEMOCRACY + +by + +JOSEPH CLAYTON + +Author of "Leaders of the People" "Bishops as Legislators," etc. etc. + +With Eight Full-Page Plates + + + + + + + +Cassell and Company, Ltd. +London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne +1911 +All Rights Reserved + + +[Illustration: KING JOHN GRANTING MAGNA CHARTA + +From the Fresco in the Royal Exchange, by Ernest Normand. + +_By permission of Messrs. S. Hildesheimer & Co., Ltd._] + + + + + +PREFACE + +This short account of the rise of political democracy is necessarily but an +outline of the matter, and while it is not easy to define the exact limits, +there is no difficulty in noting omissions. For instance, there is scarcely +any reference to the work of poets or pamphleteers. John Ball's rhyming +letters are quoted, but not the poems of Langland, and the political songs +of the Middle Ages are hardly mentioned. The host of political pamphleteers +in the seventeenth century are excluded, with the exception of Lilburne and +Winstanley, whose work deserves better treatment from posterity than it +received from contemporaries. Defoe's vigorous services for the Whigs are +unnoticed, and the democratic note in much of the poetry of Burns, Blake, +Byron and Shelley is left unconsidered, and the influence of these poets +undiscussed. The anti-Corn Law rhymes of Ebenezer Eliot, and the Chartist +songs of Ernest Jones were notable inspirations in their day, and in our +own times Walt Whitman and Mr. Edward Carpenter have been the chief singers +of democracy. But a whole volume at least might be written on the part the +pen has played in the struggle towards democracy. + +Again, there is no mention of Ireland in this short sketch. A Nationalist +movement is not necessarily a democratic movement, and the Irish +Nationalist Party includes men of very various political opinions, whose +single point of agreement is the demand for Home Rule. In India and Egypt +the agitation is for representative institutions. Ireland might, or might +not, become a democracy under Home Rule--who can say? + +The aim of the present writer has been to trace the travelled road of the +English people towards democracy, and to point out certain landmarks on +that road, in the hope that readers may be turned to examine more closely +for themselves the journey taken. For the long march teems with adventure +and spirited enterprise; and, noting mistakes and failures in the past, we +may surely and wisely, and yet with greater daring and finer courage, +pursue the road, not unmindful of the charge committed to us in the +centuries left behind. + + J.C. + + HAMPSTEAD, + _September, 1911._ + + + + +CONTENTS + +INTRODUCTION + +The British Influence--"Government of the People, by the People, for the +People"--The Foundations of Democracy--British Democracy Experimental not +Doctrinaire--Education to Democracy + +CHAPTER I + +THE EARLY STRUGGLES AGAINST THE ABSOLUTISM OF THE CROWN + +The Great Churchmen--Archbishop Anselm and Norman Autocracy--Thomas à +Becket and Henry II.--Stephen Langton and John--The Great Charter + +CHAPTER II + +THE BEGINNING OF PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION + +Democracy and Representative Government--Representative Theory First found +in Ecclesiastical Assemblies--The Misrule of Henry III.--Simon of Montfort, +Leader of the National Party--Edward I.'s Model Parliament, 1295--The +Nobility Predominant in Parliament--The Medieval National Assemblies--The +Electors of the Middle Ages--Payment of Parliamentary Representatives--The +Political Position of Women in the Middle Ages--No Theory of Democracy in +the Middle Ages + +CHAPTER III + +POPULAR INSURRECTION IN ENGLAND + +General Results of Popular Risings--William FitzOsbert, 1196--The Peasant +Revolt and its Leaders, 1381--Jack Cade, Captain of Kent, 1450--The Norfolk +Rising under Ket, 1549 + +CHAPTER IV + +THE STRUGGLE RENEWED AGAINST THE CROWN + +Parliament under the Tudors--Victory of Parliament over the Stuarts--The +Democratic Protest: Lilburne--Winstanley and "The Diggers"--The Restoration + +CHAPTER V + +CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT--ARISTOCRACY TRIUMPHANT + +Government by Aristocrats--Civil and Religious Liberty--Growth of Cabinet +Rule--Walpole's rule--The Change in the House of Lords--"Wilkes and +Liberty" + +CHAPTER VI + +THE RISE OF THE DEMOCRATIC IDEA + +The Witness of the Middle Ages--The "Social Contract" Theory--Thomas +Hobbes--John Locke--Rousseau and French Revolution--American +Independence--Thomas Paine--Major Cartwright and the "Radical +Reformers"--Thomas Spence--Practical Politics and Democratic Ideals + +CHAPTER VII + +PARLIAMENTARY REFORM AND THE ENFRANCHISEMENT OF THE PEOPLE + +The Industrial Revolution--The Need for Parliamentary Reform--Manufacturing +Centres Unrepresented in Parliament--The Passage of the Great Reform +Bill--The Working Class still Unrepresented--Chartism--The Hyde Park +Railings, 1866--Household Suffrage--Working-class Representation in +Parliament--Removal of Religious Disabilities: Catholics, Jews and +Freethinkers--The Enfranchisement of Women + +CHAPTER VIII + +DEMOCRACY AT WORK + +Local Government--The Workman in the House of Commons--Working-class +Leaders in Parliament--The Present Position of the House of Lords--The +Popularity of the Crown--The Democratic Ideals: Socialism and Social +Reform--Land Reform and the Single Tax + +CHAPTER IX + +THE WORLD-WIDE MOVEMENT: ITS STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS + +East and West--Tyranny under Democratic Forms--The Obvious Dangers--Party +Government--Bureaucracy--Working-Class Ascendancy--On Behalf of Democracy + +LIST OF PLATES + + KING JOHN GRANTING MAGNA CHARTA + + MAGNA CHARTA--A FACSIMILE OF THE ORIGINAL IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM + + SIR JOHN ELIOT + + JOHN HAMPDEN + + THE GORDON RIOTS + + THE RIGHT HON. JOHN BURNS, M.P. + + THE RIGHT HON. D. LLOYD GEORGE, M.P. + + THE PASSING OF THE PARLIAMENT BILL IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS + + + + + +THE RISE OF THE DEMOCRACY + +INTRODUCTION + +THE BRITISH INFLUENCE + +Our business here is to give some plain account of the movement towards +democracy in England, only touching incidentally on the progress of that +movement in other parts of the world. Mainly through British influences the +movement has become world wide; and the desire for national +self-government, and the adoption of the political instruments of +democracy--popular enfranchisement and the rule of elected +representatives--are still the aspirations of civilised man in East and +West. The knowledge that these forms of democratic government have by no +means at all times and in all places proved successful does not check the +movement. As the British Parliament and the British Constitution have in +the past been accepted as a model in countries seeking free political +institutions, so to-day our Parliament and our Constitutional Government +are still quoted with approval and admiration in those lands where these +institutions are yet to be tried. + +The rise of democracy, then, is a matter in which Britain is largely +concerned; and this in spite of the fact that in England little respect and +less attention has been paid to the expounders of democracy and their +constructive theories of popular government. The notion that philosophers +are the right persons to manage affairs of state and hold the reins of +Government has always been repugnant to the English people, and, with us, +to call a man "a political theorist" is to contemn him. The English have +not moved towards democracy with any conscious desire for that particular +form of government, and no vision of a perfect State or an ideal +commonwealth has sustained them on the march. Our boast has been that we +are a "practical" people, and so our politics are, as they ever have been, +experimental. Reforms have been accomplished not out of deference to some +moral or political principle, but because the abuse to be remedied had +become intolerable. Dissatisfaction with the Government and the conviction +that only by enfranchisement and the free election of representatives can +Parliament remove the grounds of dissatisfaction, have carried us towards +democracy. + +GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE + +We have been brought to accept Abraham Lincoln's famous phrase, "Government +of the people, by the people, for the people," as a definition of +democracy; but in that acceptance there is no harking back to the early +democracies of Greece or Rome, so beloved by the French democrats of the +eighteenth century, who, however, knew very little about those ancient +states--or any vain notion of restoring primitive Teutonic democracy. + +The sovereign assemblies of Greece--the Ecclesia of Athens, and the Apella +of Sparta--the Comitia Centuriata of Rome, have no more resemblance to +democracy in the twentieth century than the Witenagemot has to the British +Parliament; and the democracy which has arisen in modern times is neither +to be traced for its origin to Greece or Rome, nor found to be evolved from +Anglo-Saxon times. The early democracies of Athens and Sparta were confined +to small states, and were based on a slave population without civic rights. +There was not even a conception that slaves might or should take part in +politics, and the slaves vastly outnumbered the citizens. Modern democracy +does not tolerate slavery, it will not admit the permanent exclusion of any +body of people from enfranchisement; though it finds it hard to ignore +differences of race and colour, it is always enlarging the borders of +citizenship. So that already in the Australian Commonwealth, in New +Zealand, in certain of the American States, in Norway, and in Finland, we +have the complete enfranchisement of all men and women who are of age to +vote. + +Apart from this vital difference between a slave-holding democracy and a +democracy of free citizens--a difference that rent the United States in +civil war, and was only settled in America by democracy ending +slavery--ancient democracy was government by popular assembly, and modern +democracy is government through elected representatives. The former is only +possible in small communities with very limited responsibilities--a parish +meeting can decide questions of no more than strictly local interest; for +our huge empires of to-day nothing better than representative government +has been devised for carrying out the general will of the majority. + +As for the early English Witenagemot, it was simply an assembly of the +chiefs, and, though crowds sometimes attended, all but the great men were +the merest spectators. Doubtless the folk-moot of the tribe was democratic, +for all free men attended it, and the English were a nation of freeholders, +and the slaves were few--except in the west--and might become free men.[1] +The shire-moot, too, with its delegates from the hundred-moots, was equally +democratic. But with feudalism and the welding of the nation, tribal +democracies passed away, leaving, however, in many places a valuable +tradition of local self-government. + +THE FOUNDATIONS OF DEMOCRACY + +A steady and invincible belief that those who maintain the defence of the +country and pay for the cost of government should have a voice in the great +council of the nation, and the conviction that effective utterance can be +found for that voice in duly chosen representatives, are the foundations on +which democracy has built. Democracy itself comes in (1) when it is seen +that all are being taxed for national purposes; and (2) the opinion finds +acceptance that responsibilities of citizenship should be borne by all who +have reached the age of manhood and are of sound mind. + +To sketch the rise of democracy in England is to trace the steady +resistance to kings who would govern without the advice of counsellors, and +to note the growing determination that these counsellors must be elected +representatives. Only when the absolutism of the Crown is ended and a +Parliament of elected members has become the real centre of government, is +it possible, without a revolution, for democracy to be established. + +Much of this book is given up, then, to the old stories of kingly rule +checked and slowly superseded by aristocracy. And all the old attempts at +revolution by popular insurrection are again retold, not only because of +the witness they bear to the impossibility in England of achieving +democracy by the violent overthrow of government, but because they also +bear witness to the heroic resolution of the English people to take up arms +and plunge into a sea of troubles rather than bear patiently ills that were +unseemly for men to endure in silence. Popular insurrection failed, but +over and over again violence has been resorted to in the resistance to +tyranny, and has been justified by its victory. If Wat Tyler, Jack Cade, +and Robert Ket are known as beaten revolutionaries, Stephen Langton, Simon +of Montfort, and John Hampden are acclaimed as patriots for not disdaining +the use of armed resistance. + +The conclusion is that a democratic revolution was not to be accomplished +in England by a rising of the people, but that forcible resistance even to +the point of civil war was necessary to guard liberties already won, or to +save the land from gross misgovernment. But always the forcible resistance, +when successful, has been made not by revolutionaries but by the strong +champions of constitutional government. The fruit of the resistance to John +was the Great Charter; of Simon of Montfort's war against Henry III., the +beginning of a representative Parliament; of the war against Charles, the +establishment of Parliamentary government. Lilburne and his friends hoped +that the civil war and the abolition of monarchy would bring in democracy, +though democracy was never in the mind of men like Hampden, who made the +war, and was utterly uncongenial to Cromwell and the Commonwealth men. But +the sanctity of monarchy received its death-blow from Cromwell, and +perished with the deposing of James II.; and there has been no +resurrection. To the Whig rule we owe the transference of political power +from the Crown to Parliament. Once it is manifest that Parliament is the +instrument of authority, that the Prime Minister and his colleagues rule +only by the permission and with the approval of the House of Commons, and +that the House of Commons itself is chosen by a certain number of electors +to represent the nation, then it is plain that the real sovereignty is in +the electors who choose the House of Commons. As long as the electors are +few and consist of the great landowners and their satellites, then the +constitutional government is aristocracy, and democracy is still to come. + +And just as discontent with monarchy, and its obvious failure as a +satisfactory form of government, brought in aristocracy, so at the +beginning of the nineteenth century discontent with aristocracy was rife, +and a new industrial middle-class looked for "Parliamentary reform," to +improve the condition of England. + +BRITISH DEMOCRACY EXPERIMENTAL, NOT DOCTRINAIRE + +Resistance to royal absolutism, culminating in the acknowledged ascendancy +of Parliament and the triumphant aristocracy of 1688, was never based on +abstract principles of the rights of barons and landowners, but sprang from +the positive, definite conviction that those who furnished arms and men for +the king, or who paid certain moneys in taxation, were entitled to be heard +in the councils of the king; and the charters given in the twelfth and +thirteenth centuries--from Henry I. to Henry III.--confirmed this +conviction. The resistance to the Stuarts was still based on the conviction +that direct taxation conferred political privileges, but now the claim to +speak in the great council of the realm had become a request to be listened +to by the king, and passed rapidly from that to a resolution that the king +should have no money from Parliament if he refused to listen. The practical +inconvenience of a king altogether at variance with Parliament was held to +be sufficient justification for getting rid of James II., and for hobbling +all future kings with the Bill of Rights. + +The dethronement of aristocracy in favour of democracy has proceeded on +very similar lines. The mass of English people were far too wretched and +far too ignorant at the end of the eighteenth century to care anything +about abstract "rights of man," and only political philosophers and a few +artisans hoped for improvement in their condition by Parliamentary reform. +Agricultural England accepted the rule of landowners as an arrangement by +providence. It was the industrial revolution that shattered the feudal +notions of society, and created a manufacturing population which knew +nothing of lowly submission to pastors and masters. A middle-class emerged +from the very ranks of the working people. The factory system brought +fortunes to men who a few years earlier had been artisans, and to these new +capitalists in the nineteenth century the aristocracy in power was as +irksome as the Stuarts had been to the Whigs. If, as the Whigs taught, +those who paid the taxes were entitled to a voice in the government, then +the manufacturing districts ought to send representatives to Parliament. It +seemed monstrous that places like Manchester, Leeds, and Birmingham had no +one in the House of Commons to plead for the needs of their inhabitants. +The manufacturer wanted Parliamentary representation because he hoped +through Parliament to secure the abolition of the political disabilities of +Nonconformists, and to get financial changes made that would make the +conditions of trade more profitable. And he felt that it would be better +for the country if he and the class he represented could speak freely in +Parliament. + +The workman wanted the vote because he had been brought to believe that, +possessing the vote, he could make Parliament enact laws that would lighten +the hardships of his life. The whole of the manufacturing class--capitalist +and workman alike--could see by 1820 that the House of Commons was the +instrument of the electorate, and that to get power they must become +electors. (Yet probably not one per cent. of them could express clearly any +theory of popular sovereignty.) The old Whig families, kept out of office +by the Tories whom George III. had placed in power, and who now controlled +the House of Commons, supported reform and the enfranchisement of the +middle class because they saw no way of getting back into power except by a +new electorate and a redistribution of Parliamentary seats. At the +beginning of the twentieth century the landowner, still Whig, though now, +as a general rule enrolled with the Unionist Party, has not been excluded +from political power, but the representatives of the middle-class and of +the working people are predominant in the House of Commons. The claim of +the House of Lords to reject the bills of the Commons has been, in our +time, subjected to the criticism formerly extended to the royal +prerogative, and an Act--the Parliament Act--has now been passed which +formally requires the Lords to accept, without serious amendment, every +Bill sent up from the Commons in three successive sessions. + +The transition from monarchy to aristocracy in England was brought about at +the price of civil war. In many countries democracy has been born in +revolution, and the birth pains have been hard and bitter. But in England +in the nineteenth century democracy was allowed to come into being by +permission of the aristocracy, and has not yet reached its full stature. It +is true that violence, bloodshed, loss of life, and destruction of property +marked the passage of the great Reform Bill; that more than once riots and +defiance of law and order have been the expression of industrial +discontent; but on the whole the average Englishman is content to wait for +the redress of wrongs by Parliamentary action. Women have quite recently +defied the law, refused to pay taxes, and made use of "militant methods" in +their agitation for enfranchisement. But the women's plea has been that, as +they are voteless, these methods have been necessary to call attention to +their demands. Democratic advance has often been hindered and delayed by +government, and by a national disinclination from rapid political change; +but as the character of government has changed with the changed character +of the electorate and the House of Commons, so resistance to democracy has +always been abandoned when the advance was widely supported, and further +delay seemed dangerous to the public order. + +The House of Lords is thus seen to yield to the popular representatives in +the House of Commons, and the government, dependent on the House of +Commons, to listen to the demand of women for enfranchisement. + +While the House of Commons completes its assertion of political supremacy, +and insists on the absolute responsibility of the chosen representatives of +the electorate, the agitation for the enfranchisement of women is the +reminder that democracy has yet to widen its borders. Progress to democracy +in the last one hundred years is visible not only in the enlarged number of +enfranchised citizens, but in the general admission that every extension of +the franchise has been to the public good; not only in the fact that men of +all classes and trades now have their representatives in Parliament, but in +the very wide acknowledgment that women without votes cannot get that +attention by members of the House of Commons that is given to male +electors. That the majority of electors have expressed a decided opinion +that the power of the House of Lords should be curtailed, as the power of +the monarchy has been curtailed, and that the decisions of the House of +Commons are only to be corrected by the House of Commons, is evidence that +under our obviously imperfect Parliamentary system the will of the electors +does get registered on the Statute Book. + +EDUCATION TO DEMOCRACY + +Apart from the direct political education to democracy, it is well to note +the other agencies that have been at work, preparing men and women for the +responsible task of national self-government. + +In the Middle Ages the religious guilds and the trade guilds, managed by +their own members, gave men and women a training in democratic government. +The parish, too, was a commune, and its affairs and finances were +administered by duly elected officers.[2] + +But the guilds, with their numerous almshouses and hospitals, were all +suppressed early in Edward VI.'s reign, and their funds confiscated. As for +the parish, it was shorn of all its property, save the parish church, in +the same reign, and its old self-governing life dwindled away to the +election of churchwardens. + +It was not till the beginning of the nineteenth century that the working +classes, by the formation of trade unions, once more took up the task of +education in self-government. From that time onward, through trade unions, +co-operative societies, and friendly societies, with their annual +conferences and congresses, a steady training in democracy has been +achieved; and our Labour Party of to-day, with its Members of Parliament, +its members of county and district councils, and its Justices of the Peace, +would hardly have been possible but for this training. Other agencies may +be mentioned. The temperance movement, the organisation of working-men's +clubs, and the local preaching of the Nonconformist Churches--particularly +the Primitive Methodist denomination--have all helped to educate workmen in +the conduct of affairs, and to create that sense of personal responsibility +which is the only guarantee of an honest democracy. + + * * * * * + + +CHAPTER I + +THE EARLY STRUGGLES AGAINST THE ABSOLUTISM OF THE CROWN + +THE GREAT CHURCHMEN + +We are far from any thoughts of democracy in the early struggles against +the absolutism of the Crown. The old love of personal liberty that is said +to have characterised the Anglo-Saxon had no political outlet under Norman +feudalism. What we note is that three Archbishops of Canterbury were strong +enough and brave enough to stand up against the unchecked rule of kings, +and the names of these great Archbishops--Anselm, Thomas à Becket, and +Stephen Langton--are to be honoured for all time for the services they +rendered in the making of English liberties. Not one of the three was in +any sense a democrat. It is not till the latter part of the fourteenth +century that we find John Ball, a wandering, revolutionary priest, uttering +for the first time in England a democratic doctrine. Anselm, Becket, and +Langton did their work, as Simon of Montfort, and as Eliot and Hampden +worked later, not for the sake of a democracy, but for the restriction of +an intolerable autocracy. All along in English history liberties have been +gained and enlarged by this process of restriction, and it was only when +the powers of the Crown had been made subject to Parliament that it was +possible, at the close of the nineteenth century, for Parliament itself to +become converted from an assembly of aristocrats to a governing body that +really represented the nation. + +But in considering the rise of democracy we can no more omit the early +struggles against the absolutism of the Crown than we can pass over Simon +of Montfort's Parliament, or the unsuccessful popular revolts, or the war +with Charles I., or the Whig revolution of 1688. They are all incidents of +pre-democratic days, but they are all events of significance. Democracy is +no new order of society, conceived in the fertile mind of man; it has been +slowly evolved and brought to birth after centuries of struggle, to be +tried as a form of government only when other forms are outgrown, and cease +to be acceptable. + +All the great men--heroic and faulty--who withstood the tyranny of their +day, not only wrested charters from kings, they left a tradition of +resistance; and this tradition has been of incalculable service to a nation +seeking self-government. It is easy to dismiss the work of Anselm and +Becket as mere disputes between monarch and Churchman, to treat lightly the +battle for the Great Charter as a strife between king and barons. Just as +easy is it to regard the Peasant Revolt of the fourteenth century and Jack +Cade's rebellion in the fifteenth century as the tumults of a riotous mob. +The great point is to see clearly in all these contests, successful and +unsuccessful, the movement for liberty, for greater security and expansion +of life in England, and to note that only by a stern endurance and a +willingness not to bear an irksome oppression have our liberties been won. +In the winning of these liberties we have proved our fitness for democracy, +for a government that will allow the fullest measure of self-development. + +Now, what was it that Anselm contended for, first with William II. and then +with Henry I.? + +ARCHBISHOP ANSELM AND NORMAN AUTOCRACY + +Anselm was sixty when, in 1093, William II. named him for the Archbishopric +of Canterbury. In vain Anselm, who was Abbot of the famous monastery of +Bec, in Normandy, protested that he was too old, and that his business was +not with high place and power in this world. The King seemed to be dying, +and the bishops gathered round the sick bed would not hear of any refusal +on Anselm's part. They pushed the pastoral staff into his hands, and +carried him off to a neighbouring church, while the people shouted "Long +live the bishop!" + +What everybody felt was that with Anselm as Archbishop things might be +better in England, for Anselm's reputation stood very high. He had been the +friend of Lanfranc, the late Archbishop; he had been an honoured guest at +the Court of William the Conqueror; and he was known for his deep learning, +his sanctity of life, and simple, disinterested devotion to duty. It was +hoped that with a man of such holiness at Canterbury some restraint might +be placed on the lawless tyranny of the Red King. Lanfranc had been the +trusted counsellor and right hand of the Red King's father: why should not +Anselm bring back the son to the paths of decency--at least? The Archbishop +of Canterbury was the chief man in the realm next to the king, and for +three years since Lanfranc's death the see had been kept vacant that +William Rufus might enjoy its revenues for his own pleasure. It was not +unreasonable that men should look to the appointment of Anselm as the +beginning of an amendment in Church and State. The trouble was that William +stuck to his evil courses. + +The rule of William the Conqueror had been stern and harsh, and his hand +had been heavy on the English people. But there had been law and justice in +the rule; religion and morality had been respected, and peace and security +obtained. + +The rule of the Red King was not only grievous, it was arbitrary, +capricious, cruel, and without semblance of law. The austerity of the +Conqueror had been conspicuous; equally conspicuous was the debauchery of +his son. The Conqueror had been faithful and conscientious in seeing that +vacancies in the Church were filled up quickly and wisely. The Red King +preferred to leave bishoprics and churches empty so that he might annex the +profits. Lanfranc, a wise and just man, had been the Minister of the +Conqueror; the Red King made Ranulf (nicknamed the Torch or Firebrand)--a +clever, unprincipled clerk--Bishop of Durham and Justiciar. It was Ranulf +who did the King's business in keeping churches and bishoprics vacant, in +violation of law and custom; it was Ranulf who plundered the King's vassals +and the people at large by every kind of extortion, thwarted the protests +of Anselm, and encouraged William in his savage profligacies. + +Meek and gentle as Anselm was, he had all the courage that comes of a lofty +sense of responsibility to God, and he stood before kings as the Hebrew +prophets of old had stood, calm and fearless. At Christmas, 1092, three +months before his nomination to the See of Canterbury, Anselm was in +England over the affairs of his monastery, and William invited him to Court +and treated him with great display of honour. Then some private talk took +place between the two, and Anselm said plainly that "Things were spoken +daily of the King, openly or secretly, by nearly all the men of his realm, +which were not seemly for the King's dignity." From that time Anselm stayed +in England, for William refused to give him leave to return to Normandy. + +Then in March, 1093 came the King's sickness, which most men expected to be +mortal. Anselm was summoned, and on his arrival bade the King "make a clean +confession of all that he knows that he has done against God, and promise +that, should he recover, he will without pretence amend in all things. The +King at once agreed to this, and with sorrow of heart engaged to do all +that Anselm required and to keep justice and mercy all his life long. To +this he pledged his faith, and made his bishops witness between himself and +God, sending persons in his stead to promise his word to God on the altar. +An edict was written and sealed with the King's seal that all prisoners +should be set free in all his dominions, all debts forgiven, all offences +heretofore committed pardoned and forgotten for ever. Further, good and +holy laws were promised to the whole people, and the sacred upholding of +right and such solemn inquest into wrongdoing as may deter others."[3] + +William did not die, and his repentance was short-lived; but the one act of +grace he did before leaving his sick bed was to fill up the empty throne at +Canterbury by the appointment of Anselm--Anselm's protests of unfitness +notwithstanding. Then, on the King's recovery, as though to make up for the +penitence displayed, all the royal promises of amendment were broken +without shame, and "all the evil which the King had wrought before he was +sick seemed good by the side of the wrong which he did when he was returned +to health." The prisoners who had been pardoned were sent back to prison, +the debts which had been cancelled were re-claimed, and all legal actions +which had been dropped were resumed. Anselm was now enthroned at +Canterbury, and his appointment could not be revoked; but the King was +quick to show his displeasure at the new Archbishop. + +The first point raised by William was that those lands belonging to the See +of Canterbury, which had been made over to military vassals of the Crown +while the archbishopric was vacant, should remain with their holders. +Anselm said at once that this was impossible. He was responsible for the +administration of all the estates of Canterbury, and to allow these lands +to be alienated to the Crown was to rob the poor and needy who, it was +held, had a just claim on the property of the Church. Besides, Anselm saw +that the lands would never be restored once an Archbishop confirmed their +appropriation by the King's military tenants. There was no one in all +England save Anselm who dared withstand the Crown, and had he yielded on +this matter resistance to the tyranny of the Red King would only have been +harder on the next occasion. + +Then came the question of a present of money to the King, the customary +offering. Anselm brought five hundred marks (£333), a very considerable sum +in those days, and William, persuaded by some of his courtiers that twice +the amount ought to have been given, curtly declined the present. Anselm, +who disliked the whole business of these gifts to the Crown, for he knew +that many a Churchman bought his office by promising a "free" gift after +institution, solemnly warned William that money given freely as his was +given was better than a forced tribute, and to this William answered that +he wanted neither the Archbishop's money nor his preaching or company. + +Thereupon Anselm retired and gave the money to the poor, determined that +he, for his part, would make no attempt to purchase William's goodwill. +Henceforth William was equally determined that Anselm should have no peace +in England. It was hateful to the King that there should be anyone in the +realm who acknowledged a higher authority than the Crown, and Anselm made +it too plain that the Archbishop rested his authority not on the favour of +the Crown, but on the discipline of the Christian religion. William was +King of England indisputably, but there was a higher power than the King, +and that was the Pope. William himself never dreamed of denying the divine +authority of the Pope in spiritual matters; no one in all Christendom in +the eleventh and twelfth centuries questioned that at Rome was a court of +appeal higher than the courts of kings. Strong rulers like William the +Conqueror might decline to submit to Rome on a personal question of +marriage, but Rome was the recognised centre of religion, the headquarters +of the Christian Church, and the supreme court of appeal. Apart from Rome +there was no power that could curb the fierce unbridled tyranny of the +kings of the earth, and the power of Rome was a spiritual weapon, for the +Pope had no army to enforce his decisions. So Anselm, conscious of this +spiritual authority, refused to bow to the lawless rule of the Red King; +and his very attitude, while it encouraged men to lift up their hearts who +erstwhile had felt that it was hopeless and useless to strive against +William,[4] enraged the Red King to fury. + +The things he wanted to forget were that the chief representative of the +Christian religion was a greater person than the King of England, and that +the Archbishop of Canterbury could be a Christian minister rather than a +King's man.[5] And Anselm was the constant witness to the Christian +religion, and, by his very presence, a rebuke to the crimes and cruelties +of the Court of the Red King. William actually wrote to the Pope, naturally +without any success, praying him to depose Anselm, and promising a large +annual tribute to Rome if the request was granted. + +For years the uneven contest was waged. The bishops generally avoided +Anselm, and were only anxious to be accepted by the King as good servants +of the Crown, with the result that William despised them for their +servility. But the barons began to declare their respect for the brave old +man at Canterbury. + +At last, when Anselm was summoned to appear before the King's Court, to "do +the King right," on a trumped-up charge of having failed to send an +adequate supply of troops for the King's service, he felt the position was +hopeless. Anselm's longing had been to labour with the King, as Lanfranc +had laboured, to promote religion in the country, and he had been +frustrated at every turn. The summons to the King's Court was the last +straw, for the defendant in this Court was entirely at the mercy of the +Crown. "When, in Anglo-Norman times you speak of the King's Court, it is +only a phrase for the King's despotism."[6] Anselm took no notice of the +King's summons, and decided to appeal to Rome. For a time William refused +permission for any departure from England, but he yielded in 1097, and +Anselm set out for Rome. + +He stayed at Rome and at Lyons till William was dead, for the Pope would +not let him resign Canterbury, and could do nothing to bring the King to a +better mind. Then, on the urgent request of Henry I., he returned to +England, and for a time all went well. Henry was in earnest for the +restoration of law and religion in England, and his declaration, at the +very beginning of his reign--the oft-quoted "charter" of Henry I.--to stop +the old scandals of selling and farming out Church lands, and to put down +all unrighteousness that had been in his brother's time, was hailed with +rejoicing. + +Anselm stood loyally by Henry over the question of his marriage with Edith +(who claimed release from vows taken under compulsion in a convent at +Romsey), and his fidelity at the critical time when Robert of Normandy and +the discontented nobles threatened the safety of the Crown was invaluable. +But Henry was an absolutist, anxious for all the threads of power to be in +his own hands; and just when a great Church Council at the Lateran had +decided that bishops must not be invested by kings with the ring and staff +of their office, because by such investiture they were the king's vassals, +Henry decided to invite Anselm to receive the archbishopric afresh from the +King's hands by a new act of investiture. To Anselm the abject submission +of the bishops to the Red King had been a painful spectacle; and now Henry +was making a demand that would emphasise the royal supremacy, and the +demand was intolerable and impossible. Again Anselm stood practically alone +in his resistance to the royal will, and again the question in dispute was +whether there was any power in England higher than the Crown. The papal +supremacy was no more under discussion than it had been under William. All +that Henry wanted was that the archbishops and bishops should acknowledge +that their authority came from the Crown; and at Henry's request Anselm, +then 70 years old, again journeyed to Rome to lay the matter before the +Pope. + +Pope Paschal was fully alive to the mischief of making the bishops and +clergy mere officers of kings, and it was soon seen there could be no +dispensations from Rome even for Henry. All that the Pope would allow was +that bishops might do homage to the Crown for their temporal rights, and +with this Henry had to be content. + +It was three years later before Anselm returned, and his course was now +nearly run. He died at peace on April 21st, 1109, having wrought to no +small purpose for religious liberty and the independence of the clergy. +(The demand for political and social independence always follows the +struggle for independence in religion.) Anselm spent the greater part of +his life after his enthronement at Canterbury in battling for independence +of the Crown; a century later Archbishop Stephen was to carry the battle +still further, and win wider liberties for England from the Crown. + +Of Anselm's general love of liberty and hatred of all tyranny many stories +are told. One fact may be recalled. The Church Synod, which met at +Westminster in 1102, at Anselm's request, attacked the slave trade as a +"wicked trade used hitherto in England, by which men are sold like brute +animals," and framed a Church rule against its continuance. + +In spite of this decree, serfdom lingered in England for centuries, but +hiring superseded open buying and selling of men. (The African slave trade +was the work of the Elizabethan seamen, and was excused, as slavery in the +United States was excused, by the Protestant Churches on the ground of the +racial inferiority of the negro.) + +THOMAS À BECKET AND HENRY II. + +Resistance to autocracy is often more needed against a strong and just king +than it is against an unprincipled profligate. Henry II.'s love of order +and peace, the strength and energy he spent in curtailing the power of the +barons, and in making firm the foundations of our national system of petty +sessions and assize courts have made for him an enduring fame. Henry II. +was a great lawyer; he was "the flower of the princes of his world," in +contemporary eyes; but it was as an autocrat he would rule. Against this +autocracy Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, protested, and the +protest cost him five years of exile, and finally his life. The manner of +his death earned for the Archbishop the title of martyr, and popular +acclamation required him to be canonised as a saint,[7] and his name to be +long cherished with deep devotion by the English people. Both Henry and +Thomas stand out honourably, but the former would have brought all England +under one great centralised authority, with the Crown not only predominant +but absolute in its supremacy, and the Archbishop contended for the great +mass of poor and needy people to mitigate the harshness of the law, and to +maintain the liberties of the Church against the encroachments of +sovereignty. "Nothing is more certain," as the old writer put it, "than +that both strove earnestly to do the will of God, one for the sake of his +realm, the other on behalf of his Church. But whether of the two was +zealous in wisdom is not plain to man, who is so easily mistaken, but to +the Lord, Who will judge between them at the last day." + +Becket was the first English-born Archbishop of Canterbury since the Norman +Conquest. Henry, on his accession, clove to him in friendship, made him +Lord Chancellor in 1155, and on Archbishop Theobald's death, the monks of +Canterbury at once accepted Henry's advice and elected him to the vacant +see. Becket himself knew the King too well to desire the appointment, and +warned Henry not to press the matter, and prophesied that their friendship +would be turned to bitter enmity. But Henry's mind was made up. As +Chancellor, Becket had shown no ecclesiastical bias. He had taxed clergy +and laity with due impartiality, and his legal decisions had been given +without fear or favour. Henry counted on Becket to act with the same +indifference as Archbishop, to be the King's vicegerent during the royal +absence in France. And here Henry, wise as he was in many things, mistook +his man. As Chancellor of England Becket conceived his business to be the +administration of the laws: as Archbishop he was first and foremost the +champion of the Christian religion, the protector of the poor, and the +defender of the liberties of the Church. All unwilling, like his great +predecessor, St. Anselm, to become archbishop, from the hour of his +consecration to the See of Canterbury, in 1162, Becket was as firm as +Anselm had been in resisting the absolutism of the King. To the King's +extreme annoyance the Chancellorship was at once given up--the only +instance known of the voluntary resignation of the Chancellorship by layman +or ecclesiastic,[8] and all the amusements of the Court and the business of +the world were laid aside by the new archbishop. The care of his diocese, +the relief of the poor and the sick, and attendance at the sacred offices +of the Church were henceforth the work of the man who had been Henry's +best-loved companion, and within a year of his enthronement friendship with +the King was broken. + +The first point at issue was whether there should be one common +jurisdiction in all the land, or whether the Church courts should still +exist. These Church courts had been set up by William the Conqueror and +Lanfranc, in order that the clergy should not be mixed up in ordinary law +matters, and should be excluded strictly from the common courts. No penalty +involving bloodshed could be inflicted in the Church courts, and all the +savage barbarities of mutilation, common enough as punishments in the +King's court, were forbidden. Henry II., apart from his strong desire for +centralisation in government, wanted these Church courts abolished, because +every clerk who offended against the law escaped ordinary punishment, no +matter what the charge might be. Archbishop Thomas saw that in the Church +courts there was some protection, not only for the clergy, but for all +minor ecclesiastics, and for widows and orphans, against the horrible legal +cruelties of the age. "It must be held in mind that the Archbishop had on +his side the Church or _Canon Law_, which he had sworn to obey, and +certainly the law courts erred as much on the side of harshness and cruelty +as those of the Church on that of foolish pity towards evil doers."[9] + +Before this dispute had reached its climax Thomas had boldly taken measures +against some of the King's courtiers who were defrauding the See of +Canterbury; and he had successfully withstood Henry's plan for turning the +old Dane-geld shire tax, which was paid to the sheriff for the defence of +the country and the up-keep of roads, into a tax to be collected by the +Crown as part of the royal revenue. Thomas told the King plainly that this +tax was a voluntary offering to be paid to the sheriffs only "so long as +they shall serve as fitly and maintain and defend our defendants," and said +point blank that he would not suffer a penny to be taken off his lands for +the King's purposes. Henry was obliged to yield, and this is the first case +known of resistance to the royal will in the matter of taxation. + +The case of clerical offenders, and the jurisdiction of the courts came +before a great council at Westminster in 1163. Henry declared that +criminous clerks should be deprived of their office in the Church courts, +and then handed over to the King's courts for punishment. Thomas replied +that the proposal was contrary to the religious liberties of the land, but +he met with little support from the rest of the bishops. "Better the +liberties of the Church perish than that we perish ourselves," they cried +in fear of the King. Henry followed up his proposal by calling on the +bishops to abide by the old customs of the realm, as settled by his +grandfather, Henry I., and to this they all agreed, adding "saving the +rights of our order." + +A list of the old customs was drawn up, and sixteen _Constitutions_, or +articles, were presented to the bishops at the Great Council of Clarendon, +in January, 1164. To many of these Constitutions Thomas objected; notably +(1) That clerks were to be tried in the King's courts for offences of +common law. (2) That neither archbishops, bishops, nor beneficed clerks +were to leave the kingdom without royal permission. (This would not only +stop appeals to Rome, it would make pilgrimages or attendance at General +Councils impossible without the King's consent.) (3) That no member of the +King's household was to be excommunicated without the King's permission. +(4) That no appeals should be taken beyond the Archbishop's court, except +to be brought before the King. (This definite prohibition of appeals to +Rome left the King absolute master in England.) The last article declared +that neither serfs nor the sons of villeins were to be ordained without the +consent of the lord on whose land they were born. Against his own judgment +Thomas yielded to the entreaties of the bishops, and agreed to accept the +Constitutions of Clarendon, but no sooner had he done so than he bitterly +repented, and wrote off to the Pope acknowledging his mistake. Pope +Alexander III. was mainly anxious to prevent open hostilities between Henry +and the Archbishop, and wrote calmly that he was absolved, without +suggesting any blame to the King. + +Henry now saw that the Archbishop, and only the Archbishop, stood in the +way of the royal will, and when another Council met at Northampton, in +October, 1164, the King was ready to drive Thomas out of office. Before +this Council Thomas was charged with having refused justice to John, the +Treasury-Marshall, and with contempt of the King's court, and was heavily +fined. It was difficult to get sentence pronounced, for the barons declined +to sit as judges on an archbishop; but at length, Henry, Bishop of +Winchester, on the King's order, declared the sentence. Henry followed up +the attack next day by calling upon Thomas to account for 30,000 marks +spent by him while Chancellor. In vain he proved that the Justiciar had +declared him free of all claims when he laid down the Chancellorship, that +the charge was totally unexpected; the King refused to stay the proceedings +unless Thomas would sign the Constitutions of Clarendon. + +Consultation with the bishops brought no help. "The King has declared, so +it is said, that he and you cannot both remain in England as king and +archbishop. It would be much safer to resign everything and submit to his +mercy"; thus spake Hilary, of Chichester, and his fellow-bishops all urged +resignation or submission. + +Two days later the Archbishop came into the Council in full robes with the +Cross in his hand. Earl Robert, of Leicester, rose to pass sentence upon +him and at once the Archbishop refused to hear him. "Neither law nor reason +permit children to pass sentence on their father," he declared. "I will not +hear this sentence of the King, or any judgment of yours. For, under God, I +will be judged by the Pope alone, to whom before you all here I appeal, +placing the Church of Canterbury under God's protection and the protection +of the Pope." + +There were shouts of anger at these words, and some tore rushes from the +floor and flung at him, but no one dared to stop the Archbishop's passage +as he passed from the hall. It was useless to look for help or justice in +England, and that very night Thomas left England for Flanders to appeal to +Rome. + +But Pope Alexander could do no more for Thomas than his predecessor had +done for Anselm; only he would not allow any resignation from Canterbury. +Henry himself appealed to the Pope in 1166, fearing excommunication by the +Archbishop; "thus by a strange fate it happened that the King, while +striving for those 'ancient customs' by which he endeavoured to prevent any +right of appeal (to the Pope), was doomed to confirm the right of appeal +for his own safety." The Pope did what he could to arrange a +reconciliation, but it was not till 1170 that the King, seriously alarmed +that Thomas would place England under an interdict, agreed to a +reconciliation. + +On December 1st the exile was over, and Thomas landed at Sandwich, and went +at once to Canterbury. There were many who doubted whether there could be +lasting peace between the King and the Archbishop, and while the bishops +generally hated the Primate's return, the nobles spoke openly of him as a +traitor to the King. + +The end was near. Thomas, asked to withdraw the sentence of excommunication +he had passed against the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London and +Salisbury for violating the privileges of Canterbury, answered that the +matter must go before the Pope. The bishops, instead of going to Rome, +hastened to Henry, who was keeping his Court at Bur, in France. + +Henry, at the complaint of the bishops, broke out into one of those +terrible fits of anger which overcame him from time to time, and four +knights left the Court saying, "All this trouble will be at an end when +Thomas is dead, and not before." On December 29th these knights were at +Canterbury, and at nightfall, just when vespers had begun, they slew +Archbishop Thomas by the great pillar in the Cathedral. So died this great +Archbishop for the liberties of the Church, and, as it seemed to him, for +the welfare of the people. + +Henry was horrified at the news of the Archbishop's death, and hastened to +beg absolution from Rome for the rash words that had provoked the murder. +In the presence of the Papal legate he promised to give up the +Constitutions of Clarendon, nor in the remaining eighteen years of his +reign did Henry make any fresh attempt to bring the Church under the +subjection of the Crown. + +To the great bulk of English people Thomas was a saint and martyr, and +numerous churches were dedicated in his name. More than three hundred years +later Henry VIII. decided that St. Thomas was an enemy of princes, that his +shrine at Canterbury must be destroyed, and his festival unhallowed. But +the fame of Thomas à Becket has survived the censure of Henry VIII., and +his name shines clearly across the centuries. Democracy has been made +possible by the willingness of brave men in earlier centuries to resist, to +the death, an absolutism that would have left England bound and chained to +the king's throne. + +STEPHEN LANGTON AND JOHN + +Stephen Langton was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury in June, 1207, on +the nomination of Pope Innocent III.; the monks of Canterbury, who had +proposed their own superior, consenting to the appointment, for Langton had +a high reputation for learning and was known to be of exalted character. +But King John, who had wanted a man of his own heart for the +archbishopric--John of Gray, Bishop of Norwich, commonly spoken of as "a +servant of Mammon, and an evil shepherd that devoured his own sheep"--was +enraged, and refusing to acknowledge Langton, defied the Pope, drove the +monks out of the country, and declared that anyone who acknowledged Stephen +Langton as archbishop should be accounted a public enemy. So it came about +that the great English statesman who broke down the foulest and worst +tyranny the land had known, and won for England the Great Charter of its +liberties, was a nominee of the Pope, and was to find himself under the +displeasure of the Papal legate when the Charter had been signed! For six +years John kept Stephen out of Canterbury, while England lay under an +interdict, with its King excommunicate and outside the pale of the Church. +Most of the bishops fled abroad, "fearing the King, but afraid to obey him +for dread of the Pope," and John laid hands on Church property and filled +the royal treasury with the spoils of churchmen and Jews. But in 1213 +John's position had become precarious, for the northern barons were +plotting his overthrow, and the Pope had absolved all his subjects from +allegiance, and given sentence that "John should be thrust from his throne +and another worthier than he should reign in his stead," naming Philip of +France as his successor. John was aware that he could not count on the +support of the barons in a war with France, and a prophecy of Peter, the +Wakefield Hermit, that the crown would be lost before Ascension Day, made +him afraid of dying excommunicate. Accordingly John decided to get the Pope +on his side. He agreed to receive Pandulf, the Papal legate; to acknowledge +Stephen; make good the damage done to the Church, and, in addition, +voluntarily ("of our own good free will and by the common counsel of our +barons") surrendered "to God and to the Holy Mother Church of Rome, and to +Pope Innocent and his Catholic successors," the whole realm of England and +Ireland, "with all rights thereunto appertaining, to receive them back and +hold them thenceforth as a feudatory of God and the Roman Church." He swore +fealty to the Pope for both realms, and promised a yearly tribute of 1,000 +marks. + +This abject submission to the Pope was a matter of policy. John cared +nothing for any appearance of personal or national humiliation, and as he +had broken faith with all in England, so, if it should suit his purpose, +would he as readily break faith with Rome. But the immediate advantage of +having the Pope for his protector seemed considerable. "For when once he +had put himself under apostolical protection and made his realms a part of +the patrimony of St. Peter, there was not in the Roman world a sovereign +who durst attack him or would invade his lands, in such awe was Pope +Innocent held above all his predecessors for many years past."[10] + +Stephen landed in June, 1213, and at Winchester John was formally absolved +and the coronation oaths were renewed. It was very soon seen what manner of +man the Archbishop was. In August a great gathering of the barons took +place in St. Paul's, and there Langton recited the coronation charter of +Henry I., and told all those assembled that these rights and liberties were +to be recovered; and "the barons swore they would fight for these +liberties, even unto death if it were needful, and the Archbishop promised +that he would help with all his might." The weakness of the barons hitherto +had been their want of cohesion, their endless personal feuds, and the lack +of any feeling of national responsibility. Langton laboured to create a +national party and to win recognition of law and justice for all in +England; and the Great Charter was the issue of his work. + +The state of things was intolerable. The whole administration of justice +was corrupt. The decisions of the King's courts were as arbitrary as the +methods employed to enforce sentence. Free men were arrested, evicted, +exiled, and outlawed without even legal warrant or the semblance of a fair +trial. All the machinery of government set up by the Norman kings, and +developed under Henry II., had, in John's hands, become a mere instrument +of despotic extortion, to be used against anybody and everybody, from earl +to villein, who could be fleeced by the King's servants. + +John saw the tide rising against him, and endeavoured to divide barons from +Churchmen by proclaiming that the latter should have free and undisturbed +right of election when bishoprics and other ecclesiastical offices were +vacant. But the attempt failed. Langton was too resolute a statesman, and +his conception of the primacy of Canterbury was too high for any turning +back from the work he had set himself to accomplish. The rights of election +in the Church were important, but the restoration of justice and order and +the ending of tyranny were, in his eyes, hardly less important. John, who +had been at war in France, returned defeated from his last attempt to +recover for the Crown the lost Angevin provinces, to face a discontent that +was both wide and general. The people, and in especial the barons and +knights whom for fourteen years John had robbed, insulted, and spurned, and +whose liberties he had trampled upon, were ready at last under wise +leadership to end the oppression. + +In November, 1214, the Archbishop saw that the time was come for action, +and again the barons met in council. Before the high altar in the Abbey +Church of St. Edmundsbury they swore that if the King sought to evade their +demand for the laws and liberties of Henry I.'s charter, they would make +war upon him until he pledged himself to confirm their rights in a charter +under royal seal. "They also agreed that after Christmas they would go all +together to the King and ask him for a confirmation of these liberties, and +that meanwhile they would so provide themselves with horses and arms that +if the King should seek to break his oath, they might, by seizing his +castles, compel him to make satisfaction. And when these things were done +every man returned to his own home."[11] + +John now asked for time to consider these requests, and for the next six +months worked hard to break up the barons' confederacy, to gain friends and +supporters, and to get mercenaries from Poitou. It was all to no purpose. +As a last resource he took the Cross, expecting to be saved as a crusader +from attack, and at the same time he wrote to the Pope to help his faithful +vassal. The Pope's letters rebuking the barons for conspiracy against the +King were unheeded, and the mercenaries were inadequate when John was +confronted by the whole baronage in arms. + +THE GREAT CHARTER + +In May a list of articles to be signed was sent to John; and on his refusal +the barons formally renounced their homage and fealty and flew to arms. +John was forced to surrender before this host. On June 15th he met the +barons at Runnymede, between Staines and Windsor, and there, in the +presence of Archbishop Stephen and "a multitude of most illustrious +knights," sealed the Great Charter of the Liberties of England. + +This Great Charter was in the main a renewal of the old rights and +liberties promised by Henry I. It set up no new rights, conferred no new +privileges, and sanctioned no changes in the Constitution. Its real and +lasting importance is due to its being a written document--for the first +time in England it was down in black and white, for all to read, what the +several rights and duties of King and people were, and in what the chief +points of the Constitution consisted. + +[Illustration: MAGNA CHARTA + +A facsimile of the Original in the British Museum.] + +The Great Charter is a great table of laws. It marks the beginning of +written legislation, and anticipates Acts of Parliament. Unwritten laws and +traditions were not abolished: they remain with us to this day; but the +written law had become a necessity when "the bonds of unwritten custom" +failed to restrain kings and barons. The Great Charter also took into +account the rights of free men, and of the tenants of the King's vassals. +If the barons and knights had their grievances to be redressed, the commons +and the freeholding peasants needed protection against the lawless +exactions of their overlords.[12] + +Sixty-three clauses make up Magna Charta, and we may summarise them as +follows:-- + +(1) The full rights and liberties of the Church are acknowledged; bishops +shall be freely elected, so that the Church of England shall be free.[13] + +(2-8) The King's tenants are to have their feudal rights secured against +abuse. Widows--in the wardship of the Crown--are to be protected against +robbery and against compulsion to a second marriage. + +(9-11) The harsh rules for securing the payment of debts to the Crown and +to the Jews (in whose debts the Crown had an interest) are to be relaxed. + +(12-14) No scutage or aid (save for the three regular feudal aids--the +ransom of the King, the knighting of his eldest son, and the marriage of +his eldest daughter) is to be imposed except by the Common Council of the +nation; and to this Council archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and +greater barons are to be called by special writ, while all who held their +land directly from the King, and were of lesser rank, were to be summoned +by a general writ addressed to the sheriff of the county. Forty days' +notice of the meeting was to be given, and also the cause of the assembly. +The action of those who obeyed the summons was to be taken to represent the +action of all.[14] (This last clause is never repeated in later +confirmations of the Great Charter.) + +(15-16) The powers of lords over their tenants are limited and defined. + +(17-19) A Court of Common Pleas is to be held in some fixed place so that +suitors are not obliged to follow the King's Curia. Cases touching the +ownership of land are to be tried in the counties by visiting justices, and +by four knights chosen by the county. + +(20-23) No freeman is to be fined beyond his offence, and the penalty is to +be fixed by a local jury. Earls and barons to be fined by their peers; and +clerks only according to the amount of their lay property. + +(24-33) The powers of sheriffs, constables, coroners, and bailiffs of the +King are strictly defined. No sheriff is to be a justice in his own county. +Royal officers are to pay for all the goods taken by requisition; money is +not to be taken in lieu of service from those who are willing to perform +the service. The horses and carts of freemen are not to be seized for royal +work without consent. The weirs in the Thames, Medway, and other rivers in +England are to be removed. + +(34-38) Uniformity of weights and measures is directed. Inquests are to be +granted freely. The sole wardship of minors who have other lords will not +be claimed by the King, except in special cases. No bailiff may force a man +to ordeal without witnesses. + +(39-40) No free man is to be taken, imprisoned, ousted of his land, +outlawed, banished, or hurt in any way save by the judgment of his peers, +or the law of the land. The King is not to sell, delay, or deny right or +justice to anyone. + +(41-42) Merchants may go out or come in without paying exorbitant customs. +All "lawful" men are to have a free right to pass in and out of England in +time of peace. + +(44-47) An inquiry into the Forest Laws and a reform of the forest abuses +are promised. All forests made in present reign to be disforested, and all +fences in rivers thrown down. + +(49-60) The foreign mercenaries of the King, all the detested gang that +came with horses and arms to the hurt of the realm, are to be sent out of +the country. The Welsh princes and the King of Scots (who had sided with +the barons) are to have justice done. A general amnesty for all political +offences arising from the struggle is made. + +The last three articles appointed twenty-five barons, chosen out of the +whole baronage, to watch over the keeping of the Charter. They were +empowered to demand that any breach of the articles should at once be put +right, and, in default to make war on the King till the matter was settled +to their satisfaction. Finally there was the oath to be taken on the part +of the King, and on the part of the barons that the articles of the Charter +should be observed in good faith according to their plain meaning. + +The Great Charter was signed, and then in a wild burst of rage John shouted +to his foreign supporters, "They have given me five-and-twenty over-kings!" + +Within a week of Runnymede the Great Charter was published throughout +England, but neither King nor barons looked for peace. John was ready to +break all oaths, and while he set about increasing his army of mercenaries, +he also appealed to the Pope, as his overlord, protesting that the Charter +had been wrested from him by force. + +Langton and the bishops left for Rome to attend a general council. Pope +Innocent declared the Charter annulled on the ground that both King and +barons had made the Pope overlord of England, and that consequently nothing +in the government could be changed without his consent. But with Langton, +the bishops, and the Papal legate all away at Rome, there was no one to +publish the Papal repudiation of the Charter, and the King and barons were +already at civil war. Pope Innocent III. was dead in the spring of 1216, +and John's wretched reign was over when the King lay dying at Newark in +October. + +Stephen Langton was back again at Canterbury in 1217, and for eleven more +years worked with William the Marshall and Hubert of Burgh to maintain +public peace and order during Henry III.'s boyhood. At Oxford, in 1223, the +Charter was confirmed afresh, and two years later it was solemnly +proclaimed again when the King wanted a new subsidy. As long as the great +statesmen were in office Henry III. was saved from the weakness that cursed +his rule in England for nearly forty years. But William the Marshall died +in 1219, Archbishop Stephen in 1228, and Hubert was dismissed from the +justiciarship in 1234. A horde of greedy aliens from Poitou fed at the +Court of Henry and devoured the substance of England, until men arose, as +Langton had arisen, to demand the enforcement of charters and a just +administration of the laws. + +Again a national party arises under the leadership of Simon of Montfort, +and in their victory over the King we get the beginnings of Parliamentary +government and popular representation. Every step forward is followed by +reaction, but the ground lost is recovered, and the next step taken marks +always a steady advance. Over and over again it has seemed that all the +liberties won in the past were lost, but looking back we can see that there +has been no lasting defeat of liberty. Only for a time have the forces of +oppression triumphed; it is soon found impossible in England to rest under +tyranny, or to govern without the consent of the governed. And every fresh +campaign for the restriction of kingly power brings us nearer the day of +democratic government. + + * * * * * + + +CHAPTER II + +THE BEGINNING OF PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION + +DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT + +To-day democracy takes the form of representative government in civilised +countries; and for representative government contend the nations and +peoples seeking democracy. + +The weak spots in all popular electoral systems are obvious, and the +election of representatives is always a subject for jokes and satire. It +could hardly be otherwise. For the best machinery in the world needs some +sort of sympathetic intelligence in the person who manipulates it, and the +machinery of popular elections can only be worked successfully with a large +measure of sincerity and good will. In the hands of the ambitious, the +self-seeking, and the unscrupulous, democratic politics are a machine for +frustrating popular representation, and as this state of things is always +prevalent somewhere, the humorist and the satirist naturally treat politics +without respect. + +But in spite of all its faults and failings--glaring as these are--mankind +can at present devise nothing better than representative government, and +the abuse of power, the cunning, roguery, and corruption that too often +accompany popular elections and democratic administration, rather stir +honest men to action than make them incline to dictatorship and absolutism. + +The present notion about representative government is that it makes +possible the expression of popular will, and can ensure the fulfilment of +that will. In the thirteenth century, when we get the beginnings of +representative government, there is no question of the people making +positive proposals in legislation, but there is a distinct belief that the +consent of the governed ought to be obtained by the ruling power. The mere +legal maxim from the Code of Justinian, that "that which touches all shall +be approved by all,"[15] "becomes transmuted by Edward I. into a great +political and constitutional principle."[16] + +REPRESENTATIVE THEORY FIRST FOUND IN ECCLESIASTICAL ASSEMBLIES + +More than a century earlier the first recorded appearances of town +representatives are found in the Spanish Cortes of Aragon and Castile.[17] +St. Dominic makes a representative form of government the rule in his Order +of Preaching Friars, each priory sending two representatives to its +provincial chapter, and each province sending two representatives to the +general chapter of the Order. + +In England, Simon of Montfort, the son of Simon, the great warrior of the +Albigensian wars and the warm friend of Dominic, was in close association +with the friars. Hence there was nothing so very remarkable in Earl Simon +issuing writs for the Full Parliament of 1265 for the return of two +burgesses from each city and borough. He had seen representative government +at work among the friars in their chapters. Why should the plan be not +equally useful in the government of the country?[18] There is no evidence +that the summons to the burgesses was regarded as a revolutionary +proposal--so lightly comes political change in England. + +The name of Simon of Montfort, Earl of Leicester, must always be associated +with the beginning of representative government in England. Let us recall +how it was the great Earl came to be in power in 1265. + +THE MISRULE OF HENRY III. + +Henry III. was always in want of money, and his crew of royal parasites +from Poitou drained the exchequer. Over and over again the barons called on +the King to get rid of his favourites, and to end the misrule that +afflicted the country; and the King from time to time gave promises of +amendment. But the promises were always broken. As long as Henry could get +money he was averse from all constitutional reform. In 1258 the barons were +determined that a change must be made. "If the King can't do without us in +war, he must listen to us in peace," they declared. "And what sort of peace +is this when the King is led astray by bad counsellors, and the land is +filled with foreign tyrants who grind down native-born Englishmen?" + +William of Rishanger, a contemporary writer, expressed the popular feeling +in well-known verses: + + "The King that tries without advice to seek his country's weal + Must often fail; he cannot know the wants and woes they feel. + The Parliament must tell the King how he may serve them best, + And he must see their wants fulfilled and injuries redressed. + A King should seek his people's good and not his own sweet will. + Nor think himself a slave because men hold him back from ill." + +"The King's mistakes call for special treatment," said Richard, Earl of +Gloucester. + +SIMON OF MONTFORT, LEADER OF THE NATIONAL PARTY + +So that year a Parliament met in Oxford, in the Dominican Priory. It was +called the "Mad Parliament," because the barons all came to it fully armed, +and civil war seemed imminent. But Earl Simon and Richard of Gloucester +carried the barons with them in demanding reform. Henry was left without +supporters, and civil war was put off for five years. + +The work done at this Parliament of Oxford was an attempt to make the King +abide loyally by the Great Charter; and the Provisions of Oxford, as they +were called, set up a standing council of fifteen, by whom the King was to +be guided, and ordered that Parliament was to meet three times a year: at +Candlemas (February 2nd), on June 1st, and at Michaelmas. Four knights were +to be chosen by the King's lesser freeholders in each county to attend this +Parliament, and the baronage was to be represented by twelve commissioners. + +It was an oligarchy that the Provisions of Oxford established, "intended +rather to fetter the King than to extend or develop the action of the +community at large. The baronial council clearly regards itself as +competent to act on behalf of all the estates of the realm, and the +expedient of reducing the national deliberations to three sessions of +select committees betrays a desire to abridge the frequent and somewhat +irksome duty of attendance in Parliament rather than to share the central +legislative and deliberative power with the whole body of the people. It +must, however, be remembered that the scheme makes a very indistinct claim +to the character of a final arrangement."[19] + +For a time things went better in England. The aliens at Henry's Court fled +over-seas, and their posts were filled by Englishmen. Parliament also +promised that the vassals of the nobles should have better treatment, and +that the sheriffs should be chosen by the shire-moots, the county +freeholders. + +But Henry's promises were quickly broken, and war broke out on the Welsh +borders between Simon of Montfort's friend Llewellyn and Mortimer and the +Marchers. Edward, Prince of Wales, stood by the Provisions of Oxford for a +few years, but supported his father when the latter refused to re-confirm +the Provisions in 1263. As a last resource to prevent civil war, Simon and +Henry agreed to appeal to King Louis of France to arbitrate on the +fulfilment of the Provisions. The Pope had already absolved Henry from +obedience to the Provisions, and the Award of Louis, given at Amiens and +called the _Mise of Amiens_, was entirely in Henry's favour. It annulled +the Provisions of Oxford, left the King free to appoint his own ministers, +council, and sheriffs, to employ aliens, and to enjoy power uncontrolled. +But the former charters of the realm were declared inviolate, and no +reprisals were to take place. + +To Simon and most of the barons the Award was intolerable, and when Henry +returned from France with a large force ready to take the vengeance which +the Award had forbidden, civil war could not be prevented. London rallied +to Simon, and Oxford, the Cinque Ports, and the friars were all on the side +of the barons against the King. + +On May 14th, 1264, a pitched battle at Lewes ended in complete victory for +Simon, and found the King, Prince Edward, and the kinsmen and chief +supporters of the Crown prisoners in his hands. + +Peace was made, and a treaty--the _Mise of Lewes_--drawn up and signed. +Once more the King promised to keep the Provisions and Charters, and to +dismiss the aliens. He also agreed to live thriftily till his debts were +paid, and to leave his sons as hostages with Earl Simon. + +Simon at once set about the work of reform. The King's Standing, or Privy, +Council was reconstituted, and the Parliamentary Commissioners were +abolished, "for Simon held it as much a man's duty to think and work for +his country as to fight for it." A marked difference is seen between +Simon's policy at Oxford and the policy after Lewes. The Provisions of 1258 +were restrictive. The Constitution of 1264 deliberately extended the limits +of Parliament. "Either Simon's views of a Constitution had rapidly +developed, or the influences which had checked them in 1258 were removed. +Anyhow, he had genius to interpret the mind of the nation, and to +anticipate the line which was taken by later progress."[20] What Simon +wanted was the approval of all classes of the community for his plans, and +to that end he issued writs for the Parliament--the _Full Parliament_--of +1265. + +The great feature of this Parliament was that for the first time the +burgesses of each city and borough were summoned to send two +representatives. In addition, two knights were to come from each shire, and +clergy and barons as usual--though in the case of the earls and barons only +twenty-three were invited, for Simon had no desire for the presence of +those who were his enemies. The Full Parliament sat till March, and then +two months later war had once more blazed out. Earl Gilbert of Gloucester +broke away from Simon, Prince Edward escaped from custody, and these two +joined Lord Mortimer and the Welsh Marchers. + +On August 4th Edward surprised and routed the army of the younger Simon +near Kenilworth, and then advanced to crush the great Earl, who was +encamped at Evesham, waiting to join forces with his son. All hope of +escape for Earl Simon was lost, and he was outnumbered by seven to two. But +fly he would not. One by one the barons who stood by Simon were cut down, +but though wounded and dismounted, the great Earl "fought on to the last +like a giant for the freedom of England, till a foot soldier stabbed him in +the back under the mail, and he was borne down and slain." For three hours +the unequal fight lasted in the midst of storm and darkness, and when it +was over the Grey Friars carried the mangled body of the dead Earl into the +priory at Evesham, and laid it before the high altar, for the poorer clergy +and the common people all counted Simon of Montfort for a saint. + +"Those who knew Simon praise his piety, admire his learning, and extol his +prowess as a knight and skill as a general. They tell of his simple fare +and plain russet dress, bear witness to his kindly speech and firm +friendship to all good men, describe his angry scorn for liars and unjust +men, and marvel at his zeal for truth and right, which was such that +neither pleasure nor threats nor promises could turn him aside from keeping +the oath he swore at Oxford; for he held up the good cause 'like a pillar +that cannot be moved, and, like a second Josiah, esteemed righteousness the +very healing of his soul.' As a statesman he wished to bind the King to +rule according to law, and to make the King's Ministers responsible to a +Full Parliament; and though he did not live to see the success of his +policy, he had pointed out the way by which future statesmen might bring it +about."[21] + +In the hour of Simon's death it might seem that the cause of good +government was utterly lost, and for a time Henry triumphed with a fierce +reaction. But the very barons who had turned against Simon were quite +determined that the Charters should be observed, and Edward was to show, on +his coming to the throne, that he had grasped even more fully than Simon +the notion of a national representative assembly, and that he accepted the +principle, "that which touches all shall be approved by all." + +Henry III. died in 1272, and it was not till two years later that Edward I. +was back in England from the crusades to take up the crown. It was an age +of great lawgivers; an age that saw St. Louis ruling in France, Alfonso the +Wise in Castile, the Emperor Frederick II.--the Wonder of the World--in +Sicily. In England Edward shaped the Constitution and settled for future +times the lines of Parliamentary representative government. + +EDWARD I.'S MODEL PARLIAMENT, 1295 + +For the first twenty years Edward's Parliaments were great assemblies of +barons and knights, and it was not till 1295 that the famous Model +Parliament was summoned. "It is very evident that common dangers must be +met by measures concerted in common," ran the writ to the bishops. Every +sheriff was to cause two knights to be elected from each shire, two +citizens from each city, two burgesses from each borough. The clergy were +to be fully represented from each cathedral and each diocese. + +Hitherto Parliament, save in 1265, had been little else than a feudal +court, a council of the King's tenants; it became, after 1295, a national +assembly. Edward's plan was that the three estates--clergy, barons, and +commons: those who pray, those who fight, and those who work--should be +represented. But the clergy always stood aloof, preferring to meet in their +own houses of convocation; and the archbishops, bishops, and greater abbots +only attended because they were great holders of land and important feudal +lords. + +Although the knights of the shire were of much the same class as the +barons, the latter received personal summons to attend, and the knights +joined with the representatives of the cities and boroughs. So the two +Houses of Parliament consisted of barons and bishops--lords spiritual and +lords temporal--and knights and commons; and we have to-day the House of +Lords and the House of Commons; the former, as in the thirteenth century, +lords spiritual and temporal, the latter, representatives from counties and +boroughs. + +The admission of elected representatives was to move, in course of time, +the centre of government from the Crown to the House of Commons; but in +Edward I.'s reign Parliament was just a larger growth of the King's +Council--the Council that Norman and Plantagenet kings relied on for +assistance in the administration of justice and the collection of revenue. +The judges of the supreme court were always summoned to Parliament, as the +law lords sit in the Upper House to-day. + +Money, or rather the raising of money, was the main cause for calling a +Parliament. The clergy at first voted their own grants to the Crown in +convocation, but came to agree to pay the taxes voted by Lords and Commons, +And Lords and Commons, instead of making separate grants, joined in a +common grant. + +"And, as the bulk of the burden fell upon the Commons, they adopted a +formula which placed the Commons in the foreground. The grant was made by +the Commons, with the assent of the Lords spiritual and temporal. This +formula appeared in 1395, and became the rule. In 1407, eight years after +Henry IV. came to the throne, he assented to the important principle that +money grants were to be initiated by the House of Commons, were not to be +reported to the King until both Houses were agreed, and were to be reported +by the Speaker of the Commons' House. This rule is strictly observed at the +present day. When a money bill, such as the Finance bill for the year or +the Appropriation bill, has been passed by the House of Commons and agreed +to by the House of Lords, it is, unlike all other bills, returned to the +House of Commons."[22] The Speaker, with his own hand, delivers all money +bills to the Clerk of Parliaments, the officer whose business it is to +signify the royal assent. + +In addition to voting money, the Commons, on the assembly of Parliament, +would petition for the redress of grievances. In the thirteenth and +fourteenth centuries, they were not legislators, but petitioners for +legislation; and as it often happened that their petitions were not granted +in the form they asked, it became a matter of bitter complaint that the +laws did not correspond with the petitions. Henry V. in 1414 granted the +request that "nothing should be enacted to the petition of the Commons +contrary to their asking, whereby they should be bound without their +assent"; and from that time it became customary for bills to be sent up to +the Crown instead of petitions, leaving the King the alternative of assent +or reaction. + +THE NOBILITY PREDOMINANT IN PARLIAMENT + +In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the power of Parliament was +strong enough to force the abdication of two kings--Edward II. and Richard +II.--but not strong enough to free the land of the turbulent authority of +the nobles. This authority went down in the struggles of the Lancastrians +and Yorkists. + +"The bloody faction fights known as the Wars of the Roses brought the +Plantagenet dynasty to a close, weeded out the older nobility, and cleared +the way for a new form of monarchy."[23] + +"The high nobility killed itself out. The great barons who adhered to the +'Red Rose' or the 'White Rose,' or who fluctuated from one to the other, +became poorer, fewer, and less potent every year. When the great struggle +ended at Bosworth, a large part of the greatest combatants were gone. The +restless, aspiring, rich barons, who made the civil war, were broken by it. +Henry VII. attained a kingdom in which there was a Parliament to advise, +but scarcely a Parliament to control."[24] + +It is important to note the ascendancy of the barons in the medieval +Parliaments, and their self-destruction in the Wars of the Roses. Unless we +realise how very largely the barons were the Parliament, it is difficult to +understand how it came about that Parliament was so utterly impotent under +the Tudors. The Wars of the Roses killed off the mighty parliamentarians, +and it took a hundred years to raise the country landowners into a party +which, under Eliot, Hampden, and Pym, was to make the House of Commons +supreme. + +"The civil wars of many years killed out the old councils (if I might so +say): that is, destroyed three parts of the greater nobility, who were its +most potent members, tired the small nobility and gentry, and overthrew the +aristocratic organisation on which all previous effectual resistance to the +sovereign had been based."[25] + +To get an idea of the weakness of Parliament when the Tudors ruled, we have +but to suppose at the present day a Parliament deprived of all front-bench +men on both sides of the House, and of the leaders of the Irish and Labour +parties, and a House of Lords deprived of all Ministers and ex-Ministers. + +THE MEDIEVAL NATIONAL ASSEMBLIES + +Before passing to the Parliamentary revival of the seventeenth century, +there still remain one or two points to be considered relating to the early +national assemblies of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. + +(1) _Who were the electors in the Middle Ages?_--In the counties, all who +were entitled to attend and take part in the proceedings of the county +court had the right of electing the knight of the shire; and "it is most +probable, on the evidence of records, on the analogies of representative +usage, and on the testimony of later facts, that the knights of the shire +were elected by the full county court."[26] + +The county court or shire-moot not only elected knights for Parliament; it +often enough elected them for local purposes as well. The county coroner +was elected in similar fashion by the county. All the chief tenants and +small freeholders were therefore the county electors; but the +tenants-in-chief (who held their lands from the Crown) and the knights of +the county had naturally considerably more influence than the smaller men. +"The chief lord of a great manor would have authority with his tenants, +freeholders as they might be, which would make their theoretical equality a +mere shadow, and would, moreover, be exercised all the more easily because +the right which it usurped was one which the tenant neither understood nor +cared for."[27] + +It is difficult to decide to what extent the smaller freeholders could take +an active interest in the affairs of the county. As for the office of +knight of the shire, there was no competition in the thirteenth or +fourteenth century for the honour of going to Parliament, and it is likely +enough that the sheriff, upon whom rested the responsibility for the +elections, would in some counties be obliged to nominate and compel the +attendance of an unwilling candidate. + +(2) _Payment of Parliamentary Representatives._--The fact that Members of +Parliament were paid by their constituents in the thirteenth, fourteenth, +and fifteenth centuries[28] made certain small freeholders as anxious not +to be included in the electorate as others were anxious not to be elected +to Parliament. It was recognised as "fair that those persons who were +excluded from the election should be exempt from contribution to the wages. +And to many of the smaller freeholders the exemption from payment would be +far more valuable than the privilege of voting."[29] But the Commons +generally petitioned for payment to be made by all classes of freeholders, +and when all allowance has been made for varying customs and for local +diversities and territorial influence, it is safe to take it that the +freeholders were the body of electors. + +In 1430, the eighth year of Henry VI., an Act was passed ordering that +electors must be resident in the country, and must have free land or +tenement to the value of 40s. a year at least; and this Act was in +operation till 1831. + +The county franchise was a simple and straightforward matter compared with +the methods of electing representatives from the boroughs. All that the +sheriff was ordered to do by writ was to provide for the return of two +members for each city or borough in his county; the places that were to be +considered as boroughs were not named. In the Middle Ages a town might have +no wish to be taxed for the wages of its Parliamentary representative, and +in that case would do its best to come to an arrangement with the sheriff. +(It was not till the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that a +considerable increase of boroughs took place. The Tudors created "pocket" +and "rotten" boroughs in order to have the nominees of the Crown in +Parliament.) The size of the borough bore no relation to its membership +till the Reform Act of the nineteenth century, and as the selection of +towns to be represented was arbitrary, so the franchise in the towns was +equally unsettled. One or two places had a wide franchise, others confined +the vote to freemen and corporation members. But in spite of the +extraordinary vagaries of the borough franchise, and the arbitrary +selection of towns to be represented, these early medieval Parliaments +really did in an imperfect way represent the nation--all but the peasants +and artisans. + +"Our English Parliaments were _un_symmetrical realities. They were elected +anyhow. The sheriff had a considerable licence in sending writs to +boroughs, that is, he could in part pick its constituencies; and in each +borough there was a rush and scramble for the franchise, so that the +strongest local party got it whether few or many. But in England at that +time there was a great and distinct desire to know the opinion of the +nation, because there was a real and close necessity. The nation was wanted +to do something--to assist the sovereign in some war, to pay some old debt, +to contribute its force and aid in the critical juncture of the time. It +would not have suited the ante-Tudor kings to have had a fictitious +assembly; they would have lost their sole _feeler_, their only instrument +for discovering national opinion. Nor could they have manufactured such an +assembly if they wished. Looking at the mode of election, a theorist would +say that these Parliaments were but 'chance' collections of influential +Englishmen. There would be many corrections and limitations to add to that +statement if it were wanted to make it accurate, but the statement itself +hits exactly the principal excellence of these Parliaments. If not 'chance' +collections of Englishmen, they were 'undesigned' collections; no +administrations made them, or could make them. They were bona fide +counsellors, whose opinion might be wise or unwise, but was anyhow of +paramount importance, because their co-operation was wanted for what was in +hand."[30] + +(3) _The political position of women in the Middle Ages._--Abbesses were +summoned to the convocations of clergy in Edward I.'s reign. Peeresses were +permitted to be represented by proxy in Parliament. The offices of sheriff, +high constable, governor of a royal castle, and justice of the peace have +all been held by women. In fact, the lady of the manor had the same rights +as the lord of the manor, and joined with men who were freeholders in +electing knights of the shire without question of sex disability.[31] (A +survival of the medieval rights of women may be seen in the power of women +to present clergy to benefices in the Church of England.) + +In the towns women were members of various guilds and companies equally +with men, and were burgesses and freewomen. Not till 1832 was the word +"male" inserted before "persons" in the charters of boroughs. "Never before +has the phrase 'male persons' appeared in any statute of the realm. By this +Act (the Reform Bill), therefore, women were technically disfranchised for +the first time in the history of the English Constitution. The privilege of +abstention was converted into the penalty of exclusion." + +NO THEORY OF DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE AGES + +The years of Simon of Montfort and Edward I., which saw the beginnings of a +representative national assembly, were not a time of theoretical discussion +on political rights. The English nation, indeed, has ever been averse from +political theories. The notion of a carefully balanced constitution was +outside the calculations of medieval statesmen, and the idea of political +democracy was not included among their visions. + +"Even the scholastic writers, amid their calculations of all possible +combinations of principles in theology and morals, well aware of the +difference between the 'rex politicus' who rules according to law, and the +tyrant who rules without it, and of the characteristics of monarchy, +aristocracy, and democracy, with their respective corruptions, contented +themselves for the most part with balancing the spiritual and secular +powers, and never broached the idea of a growth into political +enfranchisement. Yet, in the long run, this has been the ideal towards +which the healthy development of national life in Europe has constantly +tended, only the steps towards it have not been taken to suit a +preconceived theory."[32] + +Each step towards democracy has been taken "to suit the convenience of +party or the necessities of kings, to induce the newly admitted classes to +give their money, to produce political contentment." + +The only two principles that are apparent in the age-long struggles for +political freedom in England, that are recognised and acknowledged, are: +(1) That that which touches all shall be approved by all; (2) that +government rests on the consent of the governed. Over and over again these +two principles may be seen at work. + + * * * * * + + +CHAPTER III + +POPULAR INSURRECTION IN ENGLAND + +GENERAL RESULTS OF POPULAR RISINGS + +Popular insurrection has never been successful in England; a violent death +and a traitor's doom have been the lot of every leader of the common people +who took up arms against the Government. The Civil War that brought Charles +I. to the scaffold, and the Revolution that deposed James II. and set +William of Orange on the throne, were the work of country gentlemen and +Whig statesmen, not of the labouring people. + +But if England has never seen popular revolution triumphant and democracy +set up by force of arms, the earlier centuries witnessed more than one +effort to gain by open insurrection some measure of freedom for the working +people of the land. + +No other way than violent resistance seemed possible to peasants and +artisans in the twelfth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, if +their wrongs were to be mitigated and their rulers to be called to account. + +Langton and Simon of Montfort had placed some check on the power of the +Crown, had laid the foundations of political liberty, and marked the road +to be travelled; but the lot of the labouring people remained unheeded and +voiceless in the councils of the nation. What could they do but take up +arms to end an intolerable oppression? + +WILLIAM FITZOSBERT, CALLED LONGBEARD, 1196 + +The first serious protest came from the London workmen in the reign of +Richard I.; and FitzOsbert, known as Longbeard, was the spokesman of the +popular discontent. + +The King wanted money, chiefly for his crusades in Palestine. He had no +inclination to personal government, and the business of ruling England was +in the hands of Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, the justiciar or +King's lieutenant. Richard left England for Normandy in 1194, and returned +no more. England to him was a country where money could be raised, a +subject-province to be bled by taxation. Archbishop Hubert did his best to +satisfy the royal demands; and though by his inquisitions "England was +reduced to poverty from one sea to the other"--it is estimated that more +than £1,000,000 was sent to Richard in two years--the King was left +unsatisfied. The nation generally came to hate the Archbishop's taxation, +the Church suffered by his neglect, and he was finally compelled to resign +the justiciarship. + +It was the London rising, under FitzOsbert's leadership, that directly +caused Archbishop Hubert's retirement, and FitzOsbert is notable as the +first of the long line of agitators. + +The political importance of the capital was seen in the reigns of Cnut and +William the Conqueror. It was conspicuous on the arrival of Stephen in +1135, and its influence on national politics lasted till the middle of the +nineteenth century.[33] + +By its charter London had the right of raising taxes for the Crown in its +own way, and in 1196 the method proposed by the Corporation provoked the +outbreak. "When the aldermen assembled according to usage in full hustings +for the purpose of assessing the taxes, the rulers endeavoured to spare +their own purses and to levy the whole from the poor" (Hoveden). + +The poorer citizens were voteless, and the plan of the aldermen was to levy +the tallages per head, and not in proportion to the property of the +inhabitants. This meant, practically, that the whole, except a very small +fraction of the sum to be raised, must be paid by the working people. + +Thereupon FitzOsbert protested, and the people rose in arms against the +demand. + +FitzOsbert was an old crusader, and he was something of a lawyer and a +powerful speaker. Not a rich man by any means, FitzOsbert was yet a member +of the city council when, "burning with zeal for justice and fair play, he +made himself the champion of the poor." To his enemies he was a demagogue +and disreputable--so Ralph de Diceto, Dean of St. Paul's at that time, +described him. To others of more popular sympathies he was heroic and died +a martyr's death. Across the centuries he is seen as "an agitator"--the +first English agitator, the first man to stand up boldly against the +oppression of the common people. This palpably unjust taxation of the poor +was intolerable to FitzOsbert. + +Fifteen thousand men banded themselves together in London under an oath +that they would stand by each other and by their leader; and FitzOsbert, +after a vain journey to Normandy to arouse Richard's attention to the +wrongs of his subjects, bade open defiance to the justiciar and his +tax-gatherers. + +For a time the Archbishop's men were powerless, but weakness crept in +amongst the citizens, and the aldermen were naturally on the side of +constituted authority. FitzOsbert's success meant a readjustment of +taxation quite unpalatable to the City Fathers. + +In the end FitzOsbert was deserted by all but a handful of his followers +and fled with them for sanctuary to the church of St. Mary-le-Bow in +Cheapside. Pursued by the officers of the law, FitzOsbert climbed up into +the tower of the church, and to fetch him down orders were given to set the +church on fire. This was done, and the only chance of life that now +remained for the rebels was to get out of the church and cut their way +through the ranks of their enemies. + +At the church door FitzOsbert was struck down, and his little company +quickly overpowered. + +Heavily chained, and badly wounded, FitzOsbert was carried off to the +Tower, to be tried and sentenced to a traitor's death without delay. + +A few days later--it was just before Easter--FitzOsbert was stripped naked, +and dragged at the tail of a horse over the rough streets of London to +Tyburn. He was dead before the place of execution was reached, but the +body, broken and mangled, was hung up in chains under the gallows elm all +the same; and nine of his companions were hanged with him. + +The very people who had fallen away from their leader in the day of his +need now counted FitzOsbert for a saint, and pieces of his gibbet and of +the bloodstained earth underneath the tree were carried away and treasured +as sacred relics. It was alleged that miracles were performed when these +relics were touched--so wide was now the popular reverence for the dead +champion of the poor. + +Archbishop Hubert put a stop to this devotion by ordering sermons to be +preached on FitzOsbert's iniquities; and an alleged death-bed confession, +containing an account of many evil deeds, was published. It is likely +enough that an old crusader had plenty of sins to answer for, but +FitzOsbert's one crime before the law was that he had taught the people of +London to stand up and resist by force of arms the payment of taxes--taxes +levied with gross unfairness in popular judgment. + +The monks of Canterbury, to whom the church of St. Mary-le-Bow in Cheapside +belonged, had long had their own quarrels with Archbishop Hubert, and on +this firing of their church, and the violation of sanctuary, they appealed +to the King and the Pope--Innocent III.--that Hubert should give up his +political work and attend exclusively to his duties as Archbishop. Both the +Pope and the great barons were against him, and in 1198 Archbishop Hubert +was compelled to resign the judiciarship. + +THE PEASANT REVOLT AND ITS LEADERS, 1381 + +The great uprising of the peasants in 1381 was a very different matter from +the local insurrection made by FitzOsbert. Two centuries had passed, and in +those centuries the beginnings of representative government had been set up +and some recognition of the rights of the peasantry had been admitted in +the Great Charter. + +The Peasant Revolt was national. It was carefully prepared and skilfully +organised, and its leaders were men of power and ability--men of character. +It was not only a definite protest against positive evils, but a vigorous +attempt to create a new social order--to substitute a social democracy for +feudal government.[34] + +The old feudal order had been widely upset by the Black Death in 1349, and +the further ravages of pestilence in 1361 and 1369. The heavy mortality +left many country districts bereft of labour, and landowners were compelled +to offer higher wages if agriculture was to go on. In vain Parliament +passed Statutes of Labourers to prevent the peasant from securing an +advance. These Acts of Parliament expressly forbade a rise in wages; the +landless man or woman was "to serve the employer who shall require him to +do so, and take only the wages which were accustomed to be taken in the +neighbourhood two years before the pestilence." The scarcity of labour +drove landowners to compete for the services of the labourer, in spite of +Parliament. + +Discontent was rife in those years of social change. The Statutes of +Labourers were ineffectual; but they galled the labourers and kept serfdom +alive. The tenants had their grievance because they were obliged to give +labour-service to their lords. Freehold yeomen, town workmen, and +shopkeepers were irritated by heavy taxation, and vexed by excessive market +tolls. All the materials were at hand for open rebellion, and leaders were +found as the days went by to kindle and direct the revolt. + +John Ball, an itinerant priest, who came from St. Mary's, at York, and then +made Colchester the centre of his wanderings, spent twenty years organising +the revolt, and three times was excommunicated and imprisoned by the +Archbishop of Canterbury for teaching social "errors, schisms, and +scandals," but was in no wise contrite or cast down. + +Chief of Ball's fellow-agitators were John Wraw, in Suffolk, Jack Straw, in +Essex--both priests these--William Grindcobbe, in Hertford, and Geoffrey +Litster, in Norfolk. In Kent lived Wat Tyler, of whom nothing is told till +the revolt was actually afire, but who at once was acknowledged leader and +captain by the rebel hosts. + +From village to village went John Ball in the years that preceded the +rising, organising the peasants into clubs, and stirring the people with +revolutionary talk. It was the way of this vagrant priest to preach to the +people on village greens, and his discourses were all on the same text--"In +the beginning of the world there were no bondmen, all men were created +equal."[35] Inequalities of wealth and social position were to be ended: + +"Good people, things will never go well in England, so long as goods be not +kept in common, and so long as there be villeins and gentlemen. By what +right are they whom men call lords greater folk than we? If all come from +the same father and mother, Adam and Eve, how can they say or prove that +they are better than we, if it be not that they make us gain for them by +our toil what they spend in their pride? + +"They are clothed in velvet, and are warm in their furs and ermines, while +we are covered in rags. They have wine and spices and fair bread, and we +oatcake and straw, and water to drink. They have leisure and fine houses; +we have pain and labour, the wind and rain in the fields. And yet it is of +us and of our toil that these men hold their state. + +"We are called slaves; and if we do not perform our services, we are +beaten, and we have not any sovereign to whom we can complain, or who +wishes to hear us and do us justice." + +The poet, William Langland, in "Piers Plowman," dwelt on the social wrongs +of the time; Ball was fond of quoting from Langland, and of harping on a +familiar couplet: + + "When Adam delved and Eve span, + Who was then the gentleman?" + +Besides the sermons, some of the rhymed letters that John Ball sent about +the country have been preserved: + + "John Ball, Priest of St. Mary's, greets well all manner of men, and + bids them in the name of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, to + stand together manfully in truth. Help truth and truth shall help you. + + "John Ball greeteth you all, + And doth to understand he hath rung your bell. + Now with right and might, will and skill, + God speed every dell. + + John the Miller asketh help to turn his mill right: + He hath ground small, small: + The King's Son of Heaven will pay for it all. + Look thy mill go right, with its four sails dight. + + With right and with might, with skill and with will, + And let the post stand in steadfastness. + Let right help might, and skill go before will, + Then shall our mill go aright; + But if might go before right, and will go before skill, + Then is our mill mis-a-dight." + +Sometimes it is under the signature of John Trueman that John Ball writes: + + "Beware ere ye be woe; + Know your friend from your foe; + Take enough and cry "Ho!" + And do well and better and flee from sin, + And seek out peace and dwell therein-- + So biddeth John Trueman and all his fellows." + +A more definite note was struck when it seemed to Ball and his colleagues +that the time was ripe for revolution, and the word was given that appeal +must be made to the boy-king--Richard was only eleven years old when he +came to the throne in 1377. + +"Let us go to the King, and remonstrate with him, telling him we must have +it otherwise, or we ourselves shall find the remedy. He is young. If we +wait on him in a body, all those who come under the name of serf, or are +held in bondage, will follow us in the hope of being free. When the King +shall see us we shall obtain a favourable answer, or we must then ourselves +seek to amend our condition." + +In another letter John Ball greets John Nameless, John the Miller, and John +Carter, and bids them stand together in God's name, and beware of guile: he +bids Piers Plowman "go to his work and chastise well Hob the Robber (Sir +Robert Hales, the King's Treasurer); and take with you John Trueman and all +his fellows, and look that you choose one head and no more." + +These letters and the preaching were accepted by willing minds. John Ball +was in prison--in the jail of Archbishop Sudbury at Maidstone--in the +spring of 1381, but the peasants were organised and ready to revolt. If Wat +Tyler is the recognised leader of the rebel forces--"the one head"--John +Ball's was the work of preparing the uprising. The vagrant priest had rung +his bell to some purpose. In every county, from Somerset to York, the +peasants flocked together, "some armed with clubs, rusty swords, axes, with +old bows reddened by the smoke of the chimney corner, and odd arrows with +only one feather." + +At Whitsuntide, early in June, 1381, the great uprising began--the Hurling +time of the peasants--long to be remembered with horror by the governing +classes. A badly ordered poll-tax was the match that kindled the fire. + +The poll-tax was first levied, in 1377, on all over fourteen years of age. +Two years later it was graduated, every man and woman of the working class +being rated at 4d., and dukes and archbishops at £6 13s. 4d. More money was +still wanted by the Government, and early in 1381, John of Gaunt, the chief +man in the realm, called Parliament together at Northampton, and demanded +£160,000. Parliament agreed that £100,000 should be raised, and the +clergy--owning a third of the land--promised £60,000. But the only way of +raising the £100,000 that the Government could think of was by another +poll-tax, and this time everybody over fifteen was required to pay 1s. Of +course, the thing was impossible. In many parishes the mere returns of +population were not filled in; numbers evaded payment--which spelt ruin--by +leaving their homes. £22,000 was all that came to hand. + +Then a man named John Legge came to the assistance of the Government, and +was appointed chief commissioner, and empowered to collect the tax. + +The methods of Legge and his assistants provoked hostility, and when the +villagers of Fobbing, Corringham, and Stanford-le-Hope, in Essex, were +summoned to meet the commissioner at Brentwood, their reply was to kill the +collectors. + +The Government answered this by sending down Chief Justice Belknap to +punish the offenders, but the people drove the chief justice out of the +place, and Belknap was glad to escape with his life. + +This was on Whit-Sunday, June 2nd, and two days later the revolt had spread +to Kent; Gravesend and Dartford were in tumult. In one place Sir Simon +Burley, a friend of Richard II., seized a workman, claiming him as a +bondservant, and refusing to let him go under a fine of £300; while at +Dartford a tax-collector had made trouble by gross indecency to the wife +and daughter of one John Tyler.[36] + +Thereupon this John Tyler, "being at work in the same town tyling of an +house, when he heard thereof, caught his lathing staff in his hand, and ran +reaking home; where, reasoning with the collector, who made him so bold, +the collector answered with stout words, and strake at the tyler; whereupon +the tyler, avoiding the blow, smote the collector with his lathing staff, +so that the brains flew out of his head. Wherethrough great noise arose in +the streets, and the poor people being glad, everyone prepared to support +the said John Tyler." + +Now, with the fire of revolt in swift blaze, it was for the men of Kent to +see that it burned under some direction. Authority and discipline were +essential if the rising was not to become mob rule or mere anarchy, and if +positive and intolerable wrongs were to find remedies. + +At Maidstone, on June 7th--after Rochester Castle had been stormed, its +prisoners set free and Sir John Newton its governor placed in safe +custody--Wat Tyler was chosen captain of the rebel hosts. + +History tells us nothing of the antecedents of this remarkable man. For +eight days, and eight days only, he plays his part on the stage of national +events: commands with authority a vast concourse of men; meets the King +face to face, and wrests from sovereignty great promises of reform; orders +the execution of the chief ministers of the Crown, and then, in what seems +to be the hour of triumph, is struck to the ground, and goes to his death. + +Under the accredited leadership of Wat Tyler the revolt at once took form. +Five days were spent in Kent before the peasant army marched on London. The +manor houses were attacked, and all rent rolls, legal documents, lists of +tenants and serfs destroyed. The rising was not a ferocious massacre like +the rising of the Jacquerie in France; there was no general massacre of +landlords, or reign of terror. The lawyers who managed the landowners' +estates were the enemy, and against them--against the instruments of +landlord tyranny--was the anger of the peasants directed. In the same way +John of Gaunt, and not the youthful King, was recognised as the evil +influence in government; and while a vow was taken by the men of Kent that +no man named "John" should be King of England, the popular cry was "King +Richard and the Commons," and all who joined in this were accounted friends +of the insurgent populace. + +Blackheath was reached on the evening of June 12th, and early the following +morning, which was Corpus Christi Day, John Ball--released by a thousand +hands from his prison at Maidstone--preached to the multitude on the work +before them: + +"Now is the opportunity given to Englishmen, if they do but choose to take +it, of casting off the yoke they have borne so long, of winning the freedom +they have always desired. Wherefore, let us take good courage and behave +like the wise husbandman of scripture, who gathered the wheat into his +barn, but uprooted and burned the tares that had half-choked the good +grain. The tares of England are her oppressive rulers, and the time of +harvest has come. Ours it is to pluck up these tares and make away with +them all--the wicked lords, the unjust judges, the lawyers--every man, +indeed, who is dangerous to the common good. Then shall we all have peace +in our time and security for the future. For when the great ones have been +rooted up and cast away, all will enjoy equal freedom and nobility, rank +and power shall we have in common." + +Thirty-thousand men--yeomen, craftsmen, villeins, and peasants, were at +Blackheath, and these were soon joined by thousands more from Surrey. + +John Wraw and Grindcobbe came to consult with Wat Tyler, and then returned +to Suffolk and Hertford to announce that the hour had come to strike. + +The Marshalsea and King's Bench prisons, and the houses of ill-fame that +clustered round London Bridge, were destroyed before Wat Tyler led his army +into the city. An attempt to meet the King in conference was frustrated by +the royal counsellors. Richard came down in the royal barge as far as +Rotherhithe, but was dissuaded by Sir Robert Hales, and the Earls of +Suffolk, Salisbury, and Warwick, from "holding speech with the shoeless +ruffians." + +Richard rowed back swiftly to the Tower, and Tyler and his army swept into +London. The city was in the hands of the rebel captain, but the citizens +welcomed the invaders, and offered bread and ale when Tyler proclaimed that +death would be the instant punishment for theft. + +John of Gaunt's palace at the Savoy, on the river strand, was the first +place to be burnt; but Henry, Earl of Derby, John of Gaunt's son (eighteen +years later to reign as Henry IV., in place of Richard), was allowed to +pass out uninjured, and a wretched man caught in the act of stealing off +with a silver cup was promptly executed. + +The Savoy destroyed, the Temple--a hive of lawyers--was the next to be +burnt, and before nightfall the Fleet Prison and Newgate had been +demolished. + +Again Tyler demanded conference with the King, and Richard, lying in the +Tower with his counsellors, unable to prevent the work of conference, +boldly decided to come out and meet the rebels. Mile End was appointed for +the conference, and to Mile End Richard came with a very modest retinue. +The King was only fifteen, but he was the son of the Black Prince, and he +had both courage and cunning. He was fully aware that the people did not +lay on him responsibility for the sins of the Government. "If we measure +intellectual power by the greatest exertion it ever displays, rather than +by its average results, Richard II. was a man of considerable talents. He +possessed along with much dissimulation a decisive promptitude in seizing +the critical moment for action."[37] + +At Mile End Tyler stated the grievances of the people. But first he asked +that all traitors should be put to death, and to this the King agreed. + +Four positive articles of reform were put forward, and were at once +assented to by the King:-- + +1. A free and general pardon to all concerned in the rising. + +2. The total abolition of all villeinage (forced labour) and serfdom. + +3. An end to all tolls and market dues--"freedom to buy and sell in all +cities, burghs, mercantile towns, and other places within our kingdom of +England." + +4. All customary tenants to become leaseholders at a fixed rental of +fourpence an acre for ever. + +That all doubts might be removed, thirty clerks were set to work on the +spot to draw up charters of manumission, and banners were presented to each +county. At nightfall thousands returned home convinced that the old order +was ended, and that the Royal charters were genuine assurances of freedom. + +But Tyler and the bulk of the men of Kent and Surrey remained in the city. +It seemed to Wat Tyler that better terms still were to be wrung from the +King. It looked that night as though the insurrection had triumphed +completely. Not only were the charters signed and the royal promises given, +but several in high office, whom Tyler held to be "traitors," had gone to +their doom. Sir Robert Hales, the Treasurer, Archbishop Sudbury, the +Chancellor--a gentle and kindly old man, "lenient to heretics"--John Legge, +the hated poll-tax commissioner, with Appleton, John of Gaunt's chaplain, +and Richard Lyons, a thoroughly corrupt contractor of Edward III.'s reign, +were all dragged out of the Tower and beheaded on Tower Hill on Friday, +June 15th. + +On Tyler's request for another conference with Richard on the following +day, the King saw he had no choice but to yield. For the second time Wat +Tyler and Richard met face to face. The conference was held at Smithfield, +in the square outside St. Bartholomew's Priory. The King and two hundred +retainers, with Walworth the mayor, were on the east side of the square. +Tyler and his army were on the west side, opposite the Priory. + +In the open space Tyler, mounted on a little horse, presented his demands; +more sweeping were the reforms now asked for than those of the previous +day. + +"Let no law but the law of Winchester[38] prevail throughout the land, and +let no man be made an outlaw by the decree of judges and lawyers. Grant +also that no lord shall henceforth exercise lordship over the commons; and +since we are oppressed by so vast a horde of bishops and clerks, let there +be but one bishop in England; and let the property and goods of Holy Church +be divided fairly according to the needs of the people in each parish, +after in justice making suitable provision for the present clergy and +monks. Finally, let there be no more villeins in England, but grant us all +to be free and of one condition." + +Richard answered that he promised readily all that was asked, "if only it +be consistent with the regality of my Crown." He then bade the commons +return home, since their requests had been granted. + +Nobles and counsellors stood in sullen and silent anger at the King's +words, but were powerless to act. Tyler, conscious of victory, called for a +draught, and when his attendant brought him a mighty tankard of ale, the +rebel leader drank good-humouredly to "King Richard and the Commons." A +knight in the royal service, a "valet of Kent," was heard to mutter that +Wat Tyler was the greatest thief and robber in all the county, and Tyler +caught the abusive words, drew his dagger, and made for the man. + +Mayor Walworth, as angry as the nobles at the King's surrender, shouted +that he would arrest all who drew weapons in the King's presence; and on +Tyler striking at him impatiently, the Mayor drew a cutlass and slashed +back, wounding Tyler in the neck so that he fell from his horse. Before he +could recover a footing, two knights plunged their swords into him, and +Tyler, mortally wounded, could only scramble on to his little horse, ride a +yard or two, call on the commons to avenge him, and then drop--a dead +man.[39] + +And with Wat Tyler's death the whole rebellion collapsed. Confusion fell +upon the people at Smithfield. Some were for immediate attack, but when +Richard, riding out into the middle of the square, claimed that he and not +Tyler was their King, and bade them follow him into the fields towards +Islington, the great mass, convinced that Richard was honestly their +friend, obeyed. At nightfall they were scattered. + +Wat Tyler's body was taken into the Priory, and his head placed on London +Bridge. + +Walworth hastily gathered troops together, and the leader of the rebels +being dead, the nobles recovered their courage. + +The rising was over; the people without leaders were as sheep for the +slaughter. Jack Straw was taken in London and hanged without the formality +of a trial; and on June 22nd Tresilian, the new chief justice, went on a +special assize to try the rebels, and "showed mercy to none and made great +havock." The King's charters and promises were declared null and void when +Parliament met, and some hundreds of peasants were hanged in various parts +of the country. + +John Ball and Grindcobbe were hanged at St. Albans on July 15th, John Wraw +and Geoffrey Litster suffered the same fate. + +All that Wat Tyler and the peasants had striven for was lost; but the +rising was not quite in vain. For one thing, the poll-tax was stopped, and +the end of villeinage was hastened. + +The great uprising was the first serious demonstration of the English +people for personal liberty. "It taught the King's officers and gentle +folks that they must treat the peasants like men if they wished them to +behave quietly, and it led most landlords to set free their bondsmen, and +to take fixed money payments instead of uncertain services from their +customary tenants, so that in a hundred years' time there were very few +bondsmen left in England."[40] + +JACK CADE, CAPTAIN OF KENT, 1450 + +To understand the character and importance of the rising of the men of Kent +under Jack Cade in 1450, the first thing to be done is to clear the mind of +Shakespeare's travesty in _King Henry VI._, Part 2. In the play the name of +Cade has been handed down in obloquy, and all that he and his followers +aimed at caricatured out of recognition. The part that Jack Cade really +played in national affairs has no likeness to the low comedy performance +imagined by Shakespeare. + +It was a popular rising in 1450, but it was not a peasant revolt. Men of +substance in the county rallied to Cade's banner, and in many parishes in +Kent the village constable was employed to enrol willing recruits in the +army of disaffection.[41] + +The peasant revolt was at bottom a social movement, fostered and fashioned +by preachers of a social democracy. Cade's rising was provoked by +misgovernment and directed at political reform. It was far less +revolutionary in purpose than the revolt that preceded it, or the rising +under Ket a hundred years later. + +The discontent was general when Cade encamped on Blackheath with the +commons of Kent at the end of May, 1450. Suffolk, the best hated of Henry +VI.'s ministers, had already been put to death by the sailors of Dover, and +Lord Say-and-Sele, the Treasurer, was in the Tower under impeachment. +Ayscough, Bishop of Salisbury, another Minister, was hanged by his +infuriated flock in Wiltshire, and Bishop Moleyns, of Chichester, Keeper of +the Privy Seal, was executed in Portsmouth by a mob of sailors. Piracy +prevailed unchecked in the English Channel, and the highways inland were +haunted by robbers--soldiers back from France and broken in the wars. + +The ablest statesman of the day, the Duke of York, was banished from the +royal council, and there was a wide feeling that an improvement in +government was impossible until York was recalled. + +Whether Cade, who was known popularly as "Mortimer," was related to the +Duke of York, or was merely a country landowner, can never be decided. The +charges made against him after his death were not supported by a shred of +evidence, but it was necessary then for the Government to blacken the +character of the Captain of Kent for the utter discouragement of his +followers. All we _know_ of Cade is that by the Act of Attainder he must +have been a man of some property in Surrey--probably a squire or yeoman. + +The army that encamped on Blackheath numbered over 40,000, and included +squires, yeomen, county gentlemen, and at least two notable ecclesiastics +from Sussex, the Abbot of Battle and the Prior of Lewes. The testimony to +Cade's character is that he was the unquestioned and warmly respected +leader of the host. The Cade depicted by his enemies--a dissolute, +disreputable ruffian--was not the kind of man to have had authority as a +chosen captain over country gentlemen and clerical landowners in the +fifteenth century. + +The "Complaints" of the commons of Kent, drawn up at Blackheath and +forwarded to the King and his Parliament, then sitting at Westminster, +called attention in fifteen articles to the evils that afflicted the land. +These articles dealt with a royal threat to lay waste Kent in revenge for +the death of the Duke of Suffolk; the wasting of the royal revenue raised +by heavy taxation; the banishment of the Duke of York--"to make room for +unworthy ministers who would not do justice by law, but demanded bribes and +gifts"; purveyance of goods for the royal household without payment; arrest +and imprisonment on false charges of treason by persons whose goods and +lands were subsequently seized by the King's servants, who then "either +compassed their deaths or kept them in prison while they got possession of +their property by royal grant"; interference by "the great rulers of the +land" with the old right of free election of knights of the shire; the +mismanagement of the war in France. A certain number of purely local +grievances, chiefly concerned with the maladministration of justice, were +also included in the "Complaints," and five "Requests"--including the +abolition of the Statutes of Labourers--were added. + +Henry and his counsellors dismissed these "Complaints" with contempt. "Such +proud rebels," it was said, "should rather be suppressed and tamed with +violence and force than with fair words or amicable answer." But when the +royal troops moved into Kent to disperse the rising, Cade's army cut them +to pieces at Sevenoaks. Henry returned to London; his nobles rode away to +their country houses; and after a fruitless attempt at negotiations by the +Duke of Buckingham and the Archbishop of Canterbury,[42] the King himself +fled to Kenilworth--leaving London at the mercy of the Captain of Kent. + +On July 2nd Cade crossed London Bridge on horseback, followed by all his +army. The Corporation had already decided to offer no opposition to his +entry, and one of its members, Thomas Cocke, of the Drapers' Company--later +sheriff and M.P.--had gone freely between the camp at Blackheath and the +city, acting as mutual friend to the rebels and the citizens. All that Cade +required was that the foreign merchants in London should furnish him with a +certain number of arms and horses, "and 1,000 marks of ready money"; and +this was done. "So that it was found that the Captain and Kentishmen at +their being in the city did no hurt to any stranger."[43] + +On the old London stone, in Cannon Street, Cade laid his sword, in the +presence of the Mayor and a great multitude of people, and declared +proudly: "Now is Mortimer lord of this city." Then at nightfall he went +back to his headquarters at the White Hart Inn in Southwark. + +The following day Lord Say-and-Sele, and his son-in-law, Crowmer, Sheriff +of Kent, were removed by Cade's orders from the Tower to the Guildhall, +tried for "divers treasons" and "certain extortions," and quickly beheaded. +Popular hatred, not content with this, placed the heads of the fallen +minister and his son-in-law on poles, made them kiss in horrible embrace, +and then bore them off in triumph to London Bridge. + +A third man, one John Bailey, was also hanged for being a necromancer; and +as Cade had promised death to all in his army convicted of theft, it fell +out that certain "lawless men" paid the penalty for disobedience, and were +hanged in Southwark--where the main body of the army lay. + +Cade's difficulties began directly after Lord Say-and-Sele's execution. +London assented willingly to the death of an unpopular statesman, but had +no mind to provision an army of 50,000 men, and, indeed, had no liking for +the proximity of such a host. Plunder being forbidden, and strict +discipline the rule, the urgent question for the Captain of Kent was how +the army was to be maintained. + +Getting no voluntary help from the city. Cade decided that he must help +himself. He supped with a worthy citizen named Curtis in Tower Street on +July 4th, and insisted before he left that Curtis must contribute money for +the support of the Kentish men. Curtis complied--how much he gave we know +not--but he resented bitterly the demand, and he told the tale of his +wrongs to his fellow-merchants.[44] The result was that while Cade slept in +peace as usual at the White Hart, the Mayor and Corporation took counsel +with Lord Scales, the Governor of the Tower, and resolved that at all costs +the Captain of Kent and his forces must be kept out of the city. After the +treatment of Curtis the fear was that disorder and pillage might become +common. + +On the evening of Sunday, July 5th, and all through the night battle waged +hotly on London Bridge, which had been seized and fortified before Cade was +awake, and by the morning the rebels, unsuccessful in their attack, were +glad to agree to a hasty truce. + +The truce gave opportunity to Cardinal Kemp, Archbishop of York, the King's +Chancellor, to suggest a lasting peace to Cade. Messengers were sent +speedily from the Tower, where Kemp, with Archbishop Stafford, of +Canterbury, had stayed in safety, to the White Hart, urging a conference +"to the end that the civil commotions and disturbances might cease and +tranquillity be restored." + +Cade consented, and when the two Archbishops, with William Waynfleet, +Bishop of Winchester, met the Captain of Kent in the Church of St. +Margaret, Southwark, and promised that Parliament should give consideration +to the "Complaints" and "Requests" of the commons, and that a full pardon +should be given to all who would straightway return home, the rising was at +an end. + +Cade hesitated, and asked for the endorsement of the pardons by Parliament; +but this was plainly impossible because Parliament was not sitting. The +bulk of the commons were satisfied with their pardons, and with the promise +that Parliament would attend to their grievances. There was nothing to be +gained, it seemed, by remaining in arms. On July 8th, the rebel army had +broken up, taking the road back to the towns and villages, farms and +cottages in Kent, Sussex, and Surrey. Cade, with a small band of followers, +retreated to Rochester, and attempted without success, the capture of +Queenborough Castle. On the news that the commons had dispersed from +Southwark, the Government at once took the offensive. Alexander Iden was +appointed Sheriff of Kent, and, marrying Crowmer's widow, subsequently +gained considerable profit. Within a week John Cade was proclaimed by the +King's writ a false traitor throughout the countryside, and Sheriff Iden +was in eager pursuit--for a reward of 1,000 marks awaited the person who +should take Cade, alive or dead. + +Near Heathfield, in Sussex, Cade, broken and famished, was found by Iden, +and fought his last fight on July 13th, preferring to die sword in hand +than to perish by the hangman. He fell before the overwhelming odds of the +sheriff and his troops, and the body was immediately sent off to London for +identification. + +The landlady of the White Hart proved the identity of the dead captain, and +all that remained was to stick the head on London Bridge, and dispatch the +quartered body to Blackheath, Norwich, Salisbury and Gloucester for public +exhibition. + +Iden got the 1,000 marks reward and, in addition, the governorship of +Rochester Castle at a salary of £36 a year. + +By special Act of Attainder all Cade's goods, lands and tenements were made +forfeit to the Crown, and statements were published for the discrediting of +Cade's life. + +No allusion was made in Parliament to the "Complaints" and "Requests," and, +in spite of Cardinal Kemp's pardons, a number of men were hanged at +Canterbury and Rochester for their share in the rising, when Henry VI. and +his justices visited Kent in January, 1451. + +The revolt failed to amend the wretched misrule. It remained for civil war +to drive Henry VI. from the throne, and make Edward IV. of York his +successor. + +THE NORFOLK RISING UNDER ROBERT KET, 1549 + +A century after the rising of the commons of Kent came the last great +popular rebellion--the Norfolk Rising, led by Ket. This insurrection was +agrarian and social, concerned neither with the fierce theological +differences of the time, nor with the political rivalries of Protector +Somerset and his enemies in Edward VI.'s Council. + +At the beginning of the sixteenth century England was in the main a nation +of small farmers, but radical changes were taking place, and these changes +meant ruin to thousands of yeomen and peasants. + +The enclosure, by many large landowners, of the fields which for ages past +had been cultivated by the country people, the turning of arable land into +pasture, were the main causes of the distress.[45] Whole parishes were +evicted in some places and dwelling houses destroyed, and contemporary +writers are full of the miseries caused by these clearances. + +Acts of Parliament were passed in 1489 and 1515, prohibiting the "pulling +down of towns," and ordering the reversion of pasture lands to tillage, but +the legislation was ignored. Sir Thomas More, in his "Utopia" (1516), +described very vividly what the enclosures were doing to rural England; and +a royal commission, appointed by Cardinal Wolsey, reported in the following +year that more than 36,000 acres had been enclosed in seven Midland +counties. In some cases, waste lands only were enclosed, but landowners +were ordered to make restitution within forty days where small occupiers +had been dispossessed. Royal commissions and royal proclamations were no +more effective than Acts of Parliament. Bad harvests drove the Norfolk +peasantry to riot for food in 1527 and 1529. The dissolution of the +monasteries in 1536 and 1539 abolished a great source of charity for the +needy, and increased the social disorder. Finally, in 1547, came the +confiscation by the Crown of the property of the guilds and brotherhoods, +and the result of this enactment can only be realised by supposing the +funds of friendly societies, trade unions, and co-operative societies taken +by Government to-day without compensation. + +All that Parliament would do in the face of the starvation and unemployment +that brooded over many parts of England, was to pass penal legislation for +the homeless and workless--so that it seemed to many that Government had +got rid of Papal authority only to bring back slavery. The agrarian misery, +the violent changes in the order of church services and social customs, the +confiscation of the funds of the guilds, and the wanton spoiling of the +parish churches[46]--all these things drove the people to revolt. + +Early in 1549 the men of Devon and Cornwall took up arms for "the old +religion," and were hanged by scores. In Norfolk that same year the rising +under Ket was social, and unconcerned with religion. Lesser agrarian +disturbances took place in Somerset, Lincoln, Essex, Kent, Oxford, Wilts, +and Buckingham. But there was no cohesion amongst the insurgents, and no +organisation of the peasants such as England had seen under John Ball and +his companion in 1381. + +In 1548 Somerset, the Lord Protector, made an honest attempt to check the +rapacity of the landowners, but his proclamation and royal commission were +no more successful than Wolsey's had been, and only earned for the +Protector the hatred of the landowners. + +The Norfolk Rising was the one strong movement to turn the current that was +sweeping the peasants into destitution. It failed, as all popular +insurrection in England has failed, and it brought its leaders to the +gallows; but for six weeks hope lifted its head in the rebel camp outside +Norwich, and many believed that oppression and misery were to end. + +The rising began at Attleborough, on June 20th, when the people pulled down +the fences and hedges set up round the common fields. On July 7th, at the +annual feast in honour of St. Thomas of Canterbury, at Wymondham, a mighty +concourse of people broke down the fences at Hetherset, and then appealed +to Robert Ket and his brother to help them. + +Both the Kets were well-known locally. They were men of old family, +craftsmen, and landowners. Robert was a tanner by trade, William a butcher. +Three manors--valued at 1,000 marks, with a yearly income of £50--belonged +to Robert Ket: church lands mostly, leased from the Earl of Warwick. + +Ket saw that only under leadership and guidance could the revolt become a +revolution, and he threw himself into the cause of his poorer neighbours +with whole-hearted fervour. "I am ready," he said, "and will be ready at +all times to do whatever, not only to repress, but to subdue the power of +great men. Whatsoever lands I have enclosed shall again be made common unto +ye and all men, and my own hands shall first perform it. You shall have me, +if you will, not only as a companion, but as a captain; and in the doing of +the so great a work before us, not only as a fellow, but for a leader, +author, and principal." + +Ket's leadership was at once acclaimed with enthusiasm by the thousand men +who formed the rebel band at the beginning of the rising. The news spread +quickly that Ket was leading an army to Norwich, and on July 10th, when a +camp was made at Eaton Wood, every hour brought fresh recruits. It is clear +from Ket's speeches, and from "The Rebels' Complaint," issued by him at +this time, that the aim of the leaders of the Norfolk Rising was not merely +to stop the enclosures, but to end the ascendancy of the landlord class for +all time, and to set up a social democracy. + +Ket's address at Eaton Wood was revolutionary: + +"Now are ye overtopped and trodden down by gentlemen, and put out of +possibility ever to recover foot. Rivers of riches run into the coffers of +your landlords, while you are par'd to the quick, and fed upon pease and +oats like beasts. You are fleeced by these landlords for their private +benefit, and as well kept under by the public burdens of State, wherein +while the richer sort favour themselves, ye are gnawn to the very bones. +Your tyrannous masters often implead, arrest, and cast you into prison, so +that they may the more terrify and torture you in your minds, and wind your +necks more surely under their arms.... Harmless counsels are fit for tame +fools; for you who have already stirred, there is no hope but in +adventuring boldly." + +"The Rebels' Complaint" is equally definite and outspoken. It rehearsed the +wrongs of a landless peasantry, and called on the people to end these +wrongs by open rebellion. The note of social equality is struck by Ket +throughout the rising. + +"The present condition of possessing land seemeth miserable and +slavish--holding it all at the pleasure of great men; not freely, but by +prescription, and, as it were, at the will and pleasure of the lord. For as +soon as any man offend any of these gorgeous gentlemen, he is put out, +deprived, and thrust from all his goods. + +"The common pastures left by our predecessors for our relief and our +children are taken away. + +"The lands which in the memory of our fathers were common, those are +ditched and hedged in and made several; the pastures are enclosed, and we +shut out. + +"We can no longer bear so much, so great, and so cruel injury; neither can +we with quiet minds behold so great covetousness, excess, and pride of the +nobility. We will rather take arms, and mix Heaven and earth together, than +endure so great cruelty. + +"Nature hath provided for us, as well as for them; hath given us a body and +a soul, and hath not envied us other things. While we have the same form, +and the same condition of birth together with them, why should they have a +life so unlike unto ours, and differ so far from us in calling? + +"We see that things have now come to extremities, and we will prove the +extremity. We will rend down hedges, fill up ditches, and make a way for +every man into the common pasture. Finally, we will lay all even with the +ground, which they, no less wickedly than cruelly and covetously, have +enclosed. + +"We desire liberty and an indifferent (or equal) use of all things. This +will we have. Otherwise these tumults and our lives shall only be ended +together." + +But though the method was revolution and the goal social democracy, Ket was +no anarchist. He proved himself a strong, capable leader, able to enforce +discipline and maintain law and order in the rebel camp. And with all his +passionate hatred against the rule of the landlord, Ket would allow neither +massacre nor murder. There is no evidence that the life of a single +landowner was taken while the rising lasted, though many were brought +captive to Ket's judgment seat. + +Ket was equally averse from civil war between the citizens of Norwich and +the peasants. When the Mayor of Norwich, Thomas Cod, refused to allow Ket's +army to cross the city on its way to Mousehold Heath, where the permanent +camp was to be made, Ket simply led his forces round by Hailsdon and +Drayton, and so reached Mousehold on July 12th without bloodshed. A week +later, and 20,000 was the number enrolled under the banner of revolt--for +the publication of "The Rebels' Complaint" and the ringing of bells and +firing of beacons roused all the countryside to action. + +On Mousehold Heath, Robert Ket, with his brother William, gave directions +and administered justice under a great tree, called the Oak of Reformation. +Mayor Cod, and two other respected Norwich citizens, Aldrich, an alderman, +and Watson, a preacher, joined Ket's council, thinking their influence +might restrain the rebels from worse doings. + +Twenty-nine "Requests and Demands," signed by Ket, Cod, and Aldrich, were +dispatched to the King from Mousehold, and this document gave in full the +grievances of the rebels. The chief demands were the cessation of +enclosures, the enactment of fair rents, the restoration of common fishing +rights, the appointment of resident clergymen to preach and instruct the +children, and the free election or appointment of local "commissioners" for +the enforcement of the laws. There was also a request "that all bond men +may be made free, for God made all free with His precious bloodshedding." + +The only answer to the "Requests and Demands" was the arrival of a herald +with a promise that Parliament would meet in October to consider the +grievances, if the people would in the meantime quietly return to their +homes. + +But this Ket would by no means agree to, and for the next few weeks his +authority was supreme in that part of the country. He established a rough +constitution for the prevention of mere disorder, two men being chosen by +their fellows from the various hundreds of the eastern half of the county. +A royal messenger, bearing commissions of the peace to certain country +gentlemen, falling into the hands of Ket, was relieved of his documents and +dismissed. Ket then put in these commissions the names of men who had +joined the rising, and declared them magistrates with authority to check +all disobedience to orders. + +To feed the army at Mousehold, men were sent out with a warrant from Ket +for obtaining cattle and corn from the country houses, and "to beware of +robbing, spoiling, and other evil demeanours." No violence or injury was to +be done to "any honest or poor man." Contributions came in from the smaller +yeomen "with much private good-will," but the landowners generally were +stricken with panic, and let the rebels do what they liked. Those who could +not escape by flight were, for the most part, brought captive to the Oak of +Reformation, and thence sent to the prisons in Norwich and St. Leonard's +Hill. + +Relations between Ket and the Norwich authorities soon became strained to +breaking point. Mayor Cod was shocked at the imprisonment of county +gentlemen, and refused permission for Ket's troops to pass through the city +on their foraging expeditions. Citizens and rebels were in conflict on July +21st, but "for lack of powder and want of skill in the gunners" few lives +were lost, and Norwich was in the hands of Ket the following day. No +reprisals followed; but a week later came William Parr, Marquis of +Northampton--Henry VIII.'s brother-in-law--with 1,500 Italian mercenaries +and a body of country squires, to destroy the rebels. Northampton's forces +were routed utterly, and Lord Sheffield was slain, and many houses and +gates were burnt in the city. + +Then for three weeks longer Robert Ket remained in power, still hoping +against hope that some attention would be given by the Government to his +"Requests and Demands." Protector Somerset, beset by his own difficulties, +could do nothing for rebellious peasants, could not countenance in any way +an armed revolt, however great the miseries that provoked insurrection. +The Earl of Warwick was dispatched with 14,000 troops to end the +rebellion, and arrived on August 24th. For two days the issue seemed +uncertain--half the city only was in Warwick's hands. The arrival of 1,400 +mercenaries--"lanzknechts," Germans mostly--and a fatal decision of the +rebels to leave their vantage ground at Mousehold Heath and do battle in +the open valley that stretched towards the city, gave complete victory to +Warwick. + +The peasants poured into the meadows beyond Magdalen and Pockthorpe gates, +and were cut to pieces by the professional soldiers. + +When all seemed over Ket galloped away to the north, but was taken, worn +out, at the village of Swannington, eight miles from Norwich. + +More than 400 peasants were hanged by Warwick's orders, and their bodies +left to swing on Mousehold and in the city. Robert Ket and William Ket were +sent to London, and after being tried and condemned for high treason, were +returned to Norwich in December for execution. Robert Ket was hanged in +chains from Norwich Castle, and William suffered in similar fashion from +the parish church at Wymondham--to remind all people of the fate that +befall those who venture, unsuccessfully, to take up arms against the +government in power. + +So the Norfolk Rising ended, and with it ended all serious popular +insurrection in England. Riots and mob violence have been seen even to our +own time, but no great, well-organised movement to overthrow authority and +establish a social democracy by force of arms has been attempted since +1549. + +The characters of Robert Ket and his brother have been vindicated by time, +and the rebel leader is now recognised as a disinterested, capable, +high-minded man. Ket took what seemed to him the only possible course to +avert the doom of a ruined peasantry, and failed. But his courage and +humaneness are beyond question.[47] + +The enclosures did not end with the sixteenth century, and for another one +hundred years complaints are heard of the steady depopulation of rural +England. In the eighteenth century came the second great series of +enclosures--the enclosing of the commons and waste spaces, by Acts of +Parliament. Between 1710 and 1867 no less than 7,660,439 acres were thus +enclosed. + +To-day the questions of land tenure and land ownership are conspicuous +items in the discussion of the whole social question, for the relations of +a people to its land are of very first importance in a democratic state. + + * * * * * + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE STRUGGLE RENEWED AGAINST THE CROWN + +PARLIAMENT UNDER THE TUDORS + +The English Parliament throughout the sixteenth century was but a servile +instrument of the Crown. The great barons were dead. Henry VIII. put to +death Sir Thomas More and all who questioned the royal absolutism. +Elizabeth, equally despotic, had by good fortune the services of the first +generation of professional statesmen that England produced. These +statesmen--Burleigh, Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Walter Mildmay, Sir Thomas +Smith, and Sir Francis Walsingham--all died in office. Burleigh was +minister for forty years, Bacon and Mildmay for more than twenty, and Smith +and Walsingham for eighteen years.[48] + +[Illustration: SIR JOHN ELIOT] + +Parliament was not only intimidated by Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, its +membership was recruited by nominees of the Crown.[49] And then it is also +to be borne in mind that both Henry and Elizabeth made a point of getting +Parliament to do their will. They governed through Parliament, and ruled +triumphantly, for it is only in the later years of Elizabeth that any +discontent is heard. The Stuarts, far less tyrannical, came to grief just +because they never understood the importance of Parliament in the eyes of +Englishmen in the middle ranks, and attempted to rule while ignoring the +House of Commons. + +Elizabeth scolded her Parliaments, and more than once called the Speaker of +the House of Commons to account. The business of Tudor Parliaments was to +decree the proposals of the Crown. "Liberty of speech was granted in +respect of the aye or no, but not that everybody should speak what he +listed." Bacon declared, "the Queen hath both enlarging and restraining +power; she may set at liberty things restrained by statute and may restrain +things which be at liberty." + +Yet Elizabeth raised no objection to the theory that Parliament was the +sovereign power, for her authority controlled Parliament; and so we have +Sir Thomas Smith writing in 1589 that "the most high and absolute power of +the realm of England consisteth in the Parliament." + +In his "Ecclesiastical Polity," Book I. (1592-3), Hooker argues that "Laws +human, of what kind soever are available by consent," and that "laws they +are not which public approbation hath not made so"; deciding explicitly +that sovereignty rests ultimately in the people. + +VICTORY OF PARLIAMENT OVER THE STUARTS + +When he came to the throne in 1603, James I. was prepared to govern with +all the Tudor absolutism, but he had neither Elizabeth's Ministers--Cecil +excepted--nor her knowledge of the English mind. The English Parliament and +the English people had put up with Elizabeth's headstrong, capricious rule, +because it had been a strong rule, and the nation had obviously thriven +under it.[50] But it was another matter altogether when James I. was king. + +"By many steps the slavish Parliament of Henry VIII. grew into the +murmuring Parliament of Queen Elizabeth, the mutinous Parliament of James +I., and the rebellious Parliament of Charles I." + +The twenty years of James I.'s reign saw the preaching up of the doctrine +of the divine right of kings by the bishops of the Established Church, and +the growing resolution of the Commons to revive their earlier rights and +privileges. If the Stuarts were as unfortunate in their choice of Ministers +as Elizabeth had been successful, the House of Commons was equally happy in +the remarkable men who became its spokesmen and leaders. In the years that +preceded the Civil War--1626-42--three men are conspicuous on the +Parliamentary side: Eliot, Hampden, and Pym. All three were country +gentlemen, of good estate, high principle, and religious +convictions[51]--men of courage and resolution, and of blameless personal +character. Eliot died in prison, in the cause of good government, in 1632; +Hampden fell on Chalgrove Field in 1643. + +As in earlier centuries the struggle in the seventeenth century between the +King and the Commons turned mainly on the questions of taxation. (At the +same time an additional cause of dispute can be found in the religious +differences between Charles I. and the Parliamentarians. The latter were +mainly Puritan, accepting the Protestantism of the Church of England, but +hating Catholicism and the high-church views of Laud. The King was in full +sympathy with high Anglicanism, and, like his father, willing to relax the +penal laws against Catholics.) + +"By the ancient laws and liberties of England it is the known birthright +and inheritance of the subject that no tax, tallage, or other charge shall +be levied or imposed but by common consent in England, and that the +subsidies of tonnage and poundage are no way due or payable but by a free +gift and special Act of Parliament." + +In these memorable words began the declaration moved by Sir John Eliot in +the House of Commons on March 2nd, 1629. A royal message ordering the +adjournment of the House was disregarded, the Speaker was held down in his +chair, and the key of the House of Commons was turned against intrusion, +while Eliot's resolutions, declaring that the privileges of the Commons +must be preserved, were carried with enthusiasm. + +Charles answered these resolutions by dissolving Parliament and sending +Eliot to the Tower. + +For eleven years no Parliament was summoned. Eliot refused altogether to +make any defence for his Parliamentary conduct. "I hold that it is against +the privilege of Parliament to speak of anything which is done in the +House," was his reply to the Crown lawyers. So Sir John Eliot was left in +prison, for nothing would induce this devoted believer in representative +government to yield to the royal pressure, and three years later, at the +age of forty-two, he died in the Tower. + +It was for the liberties of the House of Commons that Eliot gave his life. +Wasted with sickness, health and freedom were his if he would but +acknowledge the right of the Crown to restrain the freedom of Parliamentary +debate; but such an acknowledgment was impossible from Sir John Eliot. For +him the privilege of the House of Commons in the matter of free speech was +a sacred cause, to be upheld by Members of Parliament, even to the death--a +cause every whit as sacred to Eliot as the divine right of kings was to the +Stuart bishops. + +Charles hoped to govern England through his Ministers without interference +from the Commons, and only the need of money compelled him to summon +Parliament. + +John Hampden saw that if the King could raise money by forced loans and +other exactions, the days of constitutional government were over. Hence his +memorable resistance to ship-money. London and the seaports were induced to +provide supplies for ships in 1634, on the pretext that piracy must be +prevented. In the following year the demand was extended to the inland +counties, and Hampden refused point blank to pay--though the amount was +only a matter of 20s.--falling back, in justification of his refusal, on +the Petition of Right--acknowledged by Charles in 1628--which declared that +taxes were not to be levied without the consent of Parliament. The case was +decided in 1636, and five of the twelve judges held that Hampden's +objection was valid. The arguments in favour of non-payment were circulated +far and wide, so that, in spite of the adverse verdict, "the judgment +proved of more advantage and credit to the gentleman condemned than to the +King's service."[52] + +The personal rule of Charles and his Ministers, Laud and Strafford, came to +an end in the autumn of 1640, when there was no choice left to the King but +to summon Parliament, if money was to be obtained. Earlier in the year the +"Short Parliament" had met, only to be dissolved by the folly of the King +after a sitting of three weeks, because of its unwillingness to vote +supplies without the redress of grievances. + +The disasters of the King's campaign against the Scots, an empty treasury, +and a mutinous army, compelled the calling of Parliament. But the temper of +the men who came to the House of Commons in November was vastly different +from the temper of the "Short Parliament."[53] For this was the famous +"Long Parliament" that assembled in the dark autumn days of 1640, and it +was to sit for thirteen years; to see the impeachment and execution of Laud +and Strafford, the trial and execution of the King, the abolition of +monarchy and the House of Lords, the establishment of the Commonwealth; and +was itself to pass away finally only before Cromwell's military +dictatorship. + +Hampden was the great figure at the beginning of this Parliament. "The eyes +of all men were fixed upon him, as their _patriæ pater_, and the pilot that +must steer the vessel through the tempests and rocks which threatened it. I +am persuaded (wrote Clarendon) his power and interest at that time were +greater to do good or hurt than any man's in the kingdom, or than any man +of his rank hath had at any time; for his reputation of honesty was +universal, and his affections seemed so publicly guided, that no corrupt or +private ends could bias them." + +Politically, neither Hampden nor Pym was Republican. Both believed in +government by King, Lords, and Commons; but both were determined that the +King's Ministers should be answerable to Parliament for the policy of the +Crown, and that the Commons, who found the money for government, should +have a definite say in the spending of that money. As for the royal claim +of "Divine right," and the royal view that held passive obedience to be the +duty of the King's subjects, and saw in Parliament merely a useful +instrument for the raising of funds to be spent by the royal pleasure +without question or criticism--these things were intolerable to Hampden, +Pym, and the men of the House of Commons. The King would not govern through +Parliament; the House of Commons could govern without a King. It was left +to the Civil War to decide the issue between the Crown and Parliament, and +make the House of Commons supreme. + +Things moved quickly in the first year of the Long Parliament. The Star +Chamber and High Commission Courts were abolished. Strafford was impeached +for high treason, and executed on Tower Hill. Archbishop Laud lay in +prison, to be executed four years later. The Grand Remonstrance of the +House of Commons was presented to Charles in December, 1641. The demands of +the Commons in the Remonstrance were not revolutionary, but they stated, +quite frankly, the case for the Parliament. The main points were the need +for securities for the administration of justice, and an insistence on the +responsibility of the King's Ministers to the Houses of Parliament. The +Grand Remonstrance was only carried by eleven votes in the House of +Commons, 159 to 148, after wild scenes. "Some waved their hats over their +heads, and others took their swords in their scabbards out of their belts, +and held them by the pummels in their hands, setting the lower part on the +ground." Actual violence was only prevented "by the sagacity and great +calmness of Mr. Hampden, by a short speech." + +Charles promised an answer to the deputation of members who waited upon him +with the Grand Remonstrance, and early in the new year came the reply. The +King simply demanded the surrender of five members--Pym, Hampden, Holles, +Strode, and Hazlerig--and their impeachment on the charge of high treason. +All constitutional law was set aside by a charge which proceeded personally +from the King, which deprived the accused of their legal right to a trial +by their peers, and summoned them before a tribunal which had no pretence +to a justification over them. On the refusal of the Commons to surrender +their members, Charles came in person to Westminster with 300 cavaliers to +demand their arrest. But the five members, warned of the King's venture, +were well out of the way, and rested safely within the City of London--for +the citizens were strongly for the Parliament. "It was believed that if the +King had found them there (in the House of Commons), and called in his +guards to have seized them, the members of the House would have endeavoured +the defence of them, which might have proved a very unhappy and sad +business." + +As it was, Charles could only retire "in a more discontented and angry +passion than he came in." The step was utterly ill-advised. Parliament was +in no mood to favour royal encroachments, and the citizens of London were +at hand, with their trained bands, to protect forcibly members of the House +of Commons. + +War was now imminent. "The attempt to seize the five members was +undoubtedly the real cause of the war. From that moment, the loyal +confidence with which most of the popular party were beginning to regard +the King was turned into hatred and suspicion. From that moment, the +Parliament was compelled to surround itself with defensive arms. From that +moment, the city assumed the appearance of a garrison. + +"The transaction was illegal from beginning to end. The impeachment was +illegal. The process was illegal. The service was illegal. If Charles +wished to prosecute the five members for treason, a bill against them +should have been sent to a grand jury. That a commoner cannot be tried for +high treason by the Lords at the suit of the Crown, is part of the very +alphabet of our law. That no man can be arrested by the King in person is +equally clear. This was an established maxim of our jurisprudence even in +the time of Edward the Fourth. 'A subject,' said Chief Justice Markham to +that Prince, 'may arrest for treason; the King cannot; for, if the arrest +be illegal, the party has no remedy against the King.'"[54] + +Both King and Parliament broke rudely through all constitutional precedents +in their preparations for hostilities. + +The King levied troops by a royal commission, without any advice from +Parliament, and Pym got an ordinance passed, in both Houses, appointing the +Lords-Lieutenant of the counties to command the Militia without warrant +from the Crown. + +A last attempt at negotiations was made at York, in April, when the +proposals of Parliament--nineteen propositions for curtailing the power of +the Monarchy in favour of the Commons--were rejected by Charles with the +words: "If I granted your demands, I should be no more than the mere +phantom of a king." + +By August, Charles had raised the royal standard at Nottingham, and war was +begun. + +Five years later and Charles was a prisoner, to die in 1649 on the +scaffold. That same year monarchy and the House of Lords were abolished by +law; the Established Church had already fallen before the triumphant arms +of the Puritans. + +Then, in 1653, the House of Commons itself fell--expelled by Cromwell; and +the task of the Lord Protector was to fashion a constitution that would +work.[55] What happened was the supremacy of the army. Parliament, +attenuated and despised, contended in vain against the Protector. On +Cromwell's death, and the failure of his son, Richard, the army declared +for Charles II., and there was an end to the Commonwealth. + +THE DEMOCRATIC PROTEST--LILBURNE + +In all these changes the great mass of the people had neither part nor lot; +and the famous leaders of the Parliamentary Party, resolute to curtail the +absolutism of the Crown, were no more concerned with the welfare of the +labouring people than the barons were in the time of John. The labouring +people--generally--were equally indifferent to the fortunes of Roundheads +and Cavaliers, though the townsmen in many places held strong enough +opinions on the matters of religion that were in dispute.[56] + +That the common misery of the people was not in any way lightened by +Cromwell's rule we have abundant evidence, and it cannot be supposed that +the substitution of the Presbyterian discipline for episcopacy in the +Church, and the displacement of Presbyterians by Independents, was likely +to alleviate this misery. + +Taxation was heavier than it had ever been before, and in Lancashire, +Westmorland, and Cumberland the distress was appalling. + +Whitelocke, writing in 1649,[57] notes "that many families in Lancashire +were starved." "That many in Cumberland and Westmorland died in the +highways for want of bread, and divers left their habitations, travelling +with their wives and children to other parts to get relief, but could find +none. That the committees and Justices of the Peace of Cumberland signed a +certificate, that there were 30,000 families that had neither seed nor +bread-corn, nor money to buy either, and they desired a collection for +them, which was made, but much too little to relieve so great a multitude." + +Cromwell, occupied with high affairs of State, had neither time nor +inclination to attend to social reform. Democracy had its witnesses; +Lilburne and the Levellers made their protest against military rule, and +were overpowered; Winstanley and his Diggers endeavoured to persuade the +country that the common land should be occupied by dispossessed peasants, +and were quickly suppressed. + +Lilburne was concerned with the establishment of a political democracy, +Winstanley with a social democracy, and in both cases the propaganda was +offensive to the Protector. + +Had Cromwell listened to Lilburne, and made concessions towards democracy, +the reaction against Puritanism and the Commonwealth might have been +averted.[58] + +John Lilburne had been a brave soldier in the army of the Parliament in the +early years of the Civil War, and he left the army in 1645 with the rank of +Lieutenant-Colonel (and with £880 arrears of pay due to him) rather than +take the covenant and subscribe to the requirements of the "new model." + +The monarchy having fallen, Lilburne saw the possibilities of tyranny in +the Parliamentary government, and at once spoke out. With considerable +legal knowledge, a passion for liberty, clear views on democracy, an +enormous capacity for work, and great skill as a pamphleteer, Lilburne was +not to be ignored. The Government might have had him for a supporter; it +unwisely decided to treat him as an enemy, and for ten years he was an +unsparing critic, his popularity increasing with every fresh pamphlet he +issued--and at every fresh imprisonment. + +Lilburne urged a radical reform of Parliament and a general manhood +suffrage in 1647, and the "Case for the Army," published by the Levellers +in the same year, on the proposal of the Presbyterian majority in +Parliament that the army should be disbanded, demanded the abolition of +monopolies, freedom of trade and religion, restoration of enclosed common +lands, and abolition of sinecures. + +Both Cromwell and Ireton were strongly opposed to manhood suffrage, and +Cromwell--to whom the immediate danger was a royalist reaction--had no +patience for men who would embark on democratic experiments at such a +season. + +Lilburne and the Levellers were equally distrustful of Cromwell's new +Council of State. "We were ruled before by King, Lords, and Commons, now by +a General, Court-martial, and Commons; and, we pray you, what is the +difference?" So they put the question in 1648. + +To Cromwell the one safety for the Commonwealth was in the loyalty of the +army to the Government. To Lilburne the one guarantee for good government +was in the supremacy of a Parliament elected by manhood suffrage. He saw +plainly that unless steps were taken to establish democratic institutions +there was no future for the Commonwealth; and he took no part in the trial +of Charles I., saying openly that he doubted the wisdom of abolishing +monarchy before a new constitution had been drawn up. + +But Lilburne overestimated the strength of the Leveller movement in the +army, and the corporals who revolted were shot by sentence of +courts-martial.[59] + +In vain the democratic troopers argued, "the old king's person and the old +lords are but removed, and a new king and new lords with the commons are in +one House, and so we are under a more absolute arbitrary monarchy than +before." The Government answered by clapping Lilburne in the Tower, where, +in spite of a petition signed by 80,000 for his release, he remained for +three months without being brought to trial. Released on bail, Lilburne, +who from prison had issued an "Agreement of the Free People," calling for +annual parliaments elected by manhood suffrage and the free election of +unendowed church ministers in every parish, now published an "Impeachment +for High Treason against Oliver Cromwell and his son-in-law, James Ireton," +and declared that monarchy was preferable to a military despotism. At last, +brought to trial on the charge of "treason," Lilburne was acquitted with "a +loud and unanimous shout" of popular approval.[60] "In a revolution where +others argued about the respective rights of King and Parliament, he spoke +always of the rights of the people. His dauntless courage and his power of +speech made him the idol of the mob."[61] + +Lilburne was again brought to trial, in 1653, and again acquitted, with +undiminished enthusiasm. But "for the peace of the nation," Cromwell +refused to allow the irrepressible agitator to be at large, and for two +years Lilburne, "Free-born John," was kept in prison. During those years +all power in the House of Commons was broken by the rule of the Army of the +Commonwealth, and Parliament stood in abject submission before the Lord +Protector. Only when his health was shattered, and he had embraced Quaker +principles, was Lilburne released, and granted a pension of 40s. a week. +The following year, at the age of 40, Lilburne died of consumption--brought +on by the close confinement he had suffered. A year later, 1658, and +Cromwell, by whose side Lilburne had fought at Marston Moor, and against +whose rule he had contended for so many a year, was dead, and the +Commonwealth Government was doomed. + +WINSTANLEY AND "THE DIGGERS" + +The "Digger" movement was a shorter and much more obscure protest on behalf +of the people than Lilburne's agitation for democracy; but it is notable +for its social significance. + +While Lilburne strove vigorously for political reforms that are still +unaccomplished, Gerrard Winstanley preached a revolutionary gospel of +social reform--as John Ball and Robert Ket had before him. But Winstanley's +social doctrine allowed no room for violence, and included the +non-resistance principles that found exposition in the Society of Friends. +Hence the "Diggers," preaching agrarian revolution; but denying all right +to force of arms, never endangered the Commonwealth Government as Lilburne +and the Levellers did. + +Free Communism was the creed of more than one Protestant sect in the +sixteenth century, and the Anabaptists on the Continent had been +conspicuous for their experiments in community of goods and anarchist +society. + +Winstanley confined his teaching and practice to common ownership of land, +pleading for the cultivation of the enclosed common lands, "that all may +feed upon the crops of the earth, and the burden of poverty be removed." +There was to be no forcible expropriation of landlords. + +"If the rich still hold fast to this propriety of Mine and Thine, let them +labour their own lands with their own hands. And let the common people, +that say the earth is _ours_, not _mine_, let them labour together, and eat +bread together upon the commons, mountains, and hills. + +"For as the enclosures are called such a man's land, and such a man's land, +so the Commons and Heath are called the common people's. And let the world +see who labour the earth in righteousness, and those to whom the Lord gives +the blessing, let them be the people that shall inherit the earth. + +"None can say that their right is taken from them. For let the rich work +alone by themselves; and let the poor work together by themselves."[62] + +With the common ownership and cultivation of land, an end was to be made of +all tyranny of man over his fellows. + +[Illustration: JOHN HAMPDEN + +_After the Engraving by G. Houbraken._] + +"Leave off dominion and lordship one over another; for the whole bulk of +mankind are but one living earth. Leave off imprisoning, whipping, and +killing, which are but the actings of the curse. Let those that have +hitherto had no land, and have been forced to rob and steal through +poverty; henceforth let them quietly enjoy land to work upon, that everyone +may enjoy the benefit of his creation, and eat his own bread with the sweat +of his own brow." + +Winstanley's argument was quite simple: + +"If any man can say that he makes corn or cattle, he may say, _That is +mine_. But if the Lord made these for the use of His creation, surely then +the earth was made by the Lord to be a Common Treasury for all, not a +particular treasury for some." + +Two objections were urged against private property in land: + +"First, it hath occasioned people to steal from one another. Secondly, it +hath made laws to hang those that did steal. It tempts people to do an evil +action, and then kills them for doing it." It was a prolific age for +pamphlets, the seventeenth century; the land teemed with preachers and +visionaries, and Winstanley's writings never attracted the sympathy that +was given to the fierce controversialists on theological and political +questions. + +Only when Winstanley and his Diggers set to work with spade and shovel on +the barren soil of St. George's Hill, in Surrey, in the spring of 1649, was +the attention of the Council of State called to the strange proceedings. +The matter was left to the local magistrates and landowners, and the +Diggers were suppressed. A similar attempt to reclaim land near +Wellingboro' was stopped at once as "seditious and tumultuous." It was +quite useless for Winstanley to maintain that the English people were +dispossessed of their lands by the Crown at the Norman Conquest, and that +with the execution of the King the ownership of the Crown lands ought to +revert to the people; Cromwell and the Council of State had no more +patience with prophets of land nationalisation than with agitators of +manhood suffrage. Indeed, the Commonwealth Government never took the +trouble to distinguish between the different groups of disaffected people, +but set them all down as "Levellers," to be punished as disturbers of the +peace if they refused to obey authority. + +Winstanley's last pamphlet was "True Magistracy Restored," an open letter +to Oliver Cromwell, 1652, and after its publication Gerrard Winstanley and +his Diggers are heard of no more. + +To-day both Lilburne and Winstanley are to be recalled because the +agitation for political democracy is always with us, and the question of +land tenure is seen to be of profound importance in the discussion of +social reform. No democratic statesman in our time can propose an +improvement in the social condition of the people without reference to the +land question, and no social reformer of the nineteenth century has had +more influence or been more widely read and discussed than Henry +George--the exponent of the Single Tax on Land Values. + +Winstanley was very little heeded in his own day, but two hundred and fifty +years later the civilised countries of the earth are found in deep debate +over the respective rights of landowners and landless, and the relation of +poverty to land ownership. State ownership, taxation of land values, +peasant proprietorship, co-operative agriculture--all have their advocates +to-day, but to Winstanley's question whether the earth was made "for to +give ease to a few or health to all," only one answer is returned. + +THE RESTORATION + +Under the Commonwealth the landowners were as powerful as they had been +under the monarchy. Enclosures continued. Social reform was not +contemplated by Cromwell nor by Councils of State; democracy was equally +outside the political vision of government. Church of England ministers +were dispossessed in favour of Nonconformists, Puritanism became the +established faith, Catholicism remained proscribed. + +The interest in ecclesiastical and theological disputes was considerable, +and Puritanism was popular with large numbers of the middle-class. But to +the mass of the people Puritanism was merely the suppression of further +liberties, the prohibition of old customs, the stern abolition of Christmas +revels and May-day games. + +Lilburne did his best to get Cromwell to allow the people some +responsibility in the choice of its rulers. Winstanley proposed a remedy +for the social distress. To neither of these men was any concession made, +and no consideration was given to their appeals. + +Hence the bulk of the nation, ignored by the Commonwealth Government, and +alienated by Puritanism, accepted quite amiably--indeed, with +enthusiasm--the restoration of the monarchy on the return of Charles II., +and was unmoved by the royalist reaction against Parliamentary Government +that followed on the Restoration. + +The House of Commons itself, when Monk and his army had gone over to the +side of Charles, voted, in the Convention Parliament of 1660, "that +according to the ancient and fundamental laws of this Kingdom, the +government is, and ought to be, by King, Lords, and Commons," and Charles +II. was received in London with uproarious enthusiasm. + +The army was disbanded; a royalist House of Commons restored the Church of +England and ordered general acceptance of its Prayer Book. Puritanism, +driven from rule, could only remain in power in the heart and conscience of +its adherents. + +To the old Commonwealth man it might seem, in the reaction against +Puritanism, and in the popularity of the King, that all that had been +striven for in the civil war had been lost, in the same way as after the +death of Simon of Montfort it might have appeared that "the good cause" had +perished with its great leader. In reality the House of Commons stood on +stronger ground than ever, and was to show its strength when James II. +attempted to override its decisions. In the main the very forms of +Parliamentary procedure were settled in the seventeenth century, to remain +undisturbed till the nineteenth century. "The Parliamentary procedure of +1844 was essentially the procedure on which the House of Commons conducted +its business during the Long Parliament."[63] + +With Charles II. on the throne the absolutism of the Crown over Parliament +passed for ever from England. Cromwell had set up the supremacy of the army +over the Commons: this, too, was gone, never to be restored. + +Henceforth government was to be by King, Lords, and Commons; but +sovereignty was to reside in Parliament. Not till a century later would +democracy again be heard of, and its merits urged, as Lilburne had urged +them under the Commonwealth. + + * * * * * + + +CHAPTER V + +CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT--ARISTOCRACY TRIUMPHANT + +GOVERNMENT BY ARISTOCRACY + +For nearly two centuries--from 1660 to 1830--England was governed by an +aristocracy of landowners. Charles II. kept the throne for twenty-five +years, because he had wit enough to avoid an open collision with +Parliament. James II. fled the country after three years--understanding no +more than his father had understood that tyranny was not possible save by +consent of Parliament or by military prowess. At the Restoration the royal +prerogative was dead, and nothing in Charles II.'s reign tended to diminish +the power of Parliament in favour of the throne. Charles was an astute +monarch who did not wish to be sent on his travels again, and consequently +took care not to outrage the nation by any attempt upon the liberties of +Parliament. Only by the Tudor method of using Parliament as the instrument +of the royal will could James II. have accomplished the constitutional +changes he had set his heart upon. In attempting to set up toleration for +the Roman Catholic religion, and in openly appointing Roman Catholics to +positions of importance, James II. set Parliament at defiance and ranged +the forces of the Established Church against himself. The method was doomed +to failure. "None have gone about to break Parliaments but in the end +Parliaments have broken them."[64] In any case the notion of restoring +political liberty to Catholics was a bold endeavour in 1685. Against the +will of Parliament the project was folly. To overthrow the rights of +corporations and of the Universities, and to attempt to bully the Church of +England, after Elizabeth's fashion, at the very beginning of a pro-Catholic +movement, was to provoke defeat. + +Parliament decided that James II. had "abdicated," when, deserted by +Churchill, he fled to France, and William and Mary came to the throne at +the express invitation of Parliament. The Revolution completed the work of +the Long Parliament by defining the limits of monarchy, and establishing +constitutional government. It was not--this Revolution, of 1688--the first +time Parliament had sanctioned the deposing of the King of England and the +appointment of his successor,[65] but it was the last. Never again since +the accession of William and Mary have the relations of the Crown and +Parliament been strained to breaking point; never has the supremacy of +Parliament been seriously threatened by the power of the throne. + +The full effects of the Revolution of 1688 were seen in the course of the +next fifty years. Aristocracy, then mainly Whig, was triumphant, and under +its rule, while large measures of civil and religious liberty were passed, +the condition of the mass of labouring people was generally wretched in the +extreme. The rule of the aristocracy saw England become a great power among +the nations of the world, and the British Navy supreme over the navies of +Europe; but it saw also an industrial population, untaught and uncared for, +sink deeper and deeper into savagery and misery. For a time in the +eighteenth century the farmer and the peasant were prosperous, but by the +close of that century the small farmer was a ruined man, and with the +labourer was carried by the industrial revolution into the town. The worst +times for the English labourer in town and country since the Norman +Conquest were the reign of Edward VI. and the first quarter of the +nineteenth century. + +The development of our political institutions into their present form; the +establishment of our Party system of government by Cabinet, and of the +authority of the Prime Minister; the growth of the supreme power of the +Commons, not only over the throne but over the Lords also: these were the +work of the aristocracy of the eighteenth century, and were attained by +steps so gradual as to be almost imperceptible. No idea of democracy guided +the process; yet our modern democratic system is firm-rooted upon the +principles and privileges of the Constitution as thus established. Social +misery deepened, without check from the politicians; and the most +enlightened statesmen of the Whig regime were very far from our present +conceptions of the duties and possibilities of Parliament. + +CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY + +James II. was tumbled from the throne for his vain attempt to establish +toleration for Catholics and Nonconformists without consent of Parliament. +Yet the Whig aristocracy which followed, while it did nothing for +Catholics, laid broad principles of civil and religious liberty for +democracy to build upon.[66] + +The Declaration of Right, presented by Parliament to William and Mary on +their arrival in London, was turned into the Bill of Rights, and passed +into law in 1689. It stands as the last of the great charters of political +liberty, and states clearly both what is not permitted to the Crown, and +what privileges are allowed to the people. + +Under the Bill of Rights the King was denied the power of suspending or +dispensing, of levying money, or maintaining a standing army without +consent of Parliament. The people were assured of the right of the subject +to petition the Crown, and of the free election of representatives in +Parliament, and of full and free debate in Parliament. Any profession of +the Catholic religion, or marriage with a Catholic, disqualified from +inheritance to or possession of the throne. + +So there was an end to the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings, and four +hundred non-juring clergymen--including half-a-dozen bishops--of the Church +of England were deprived of their ecclesiastical appointments for refusing +to accept the accomplished fact, and acknowledge William III. as the lawful +King of England. By making William King, to the exclusion of the children +of James II., Parliament destroyed for all future time in England the +belief in the sacred character of kingship. The King was henceforth a part +of the constitution, and came to the throne by authority of Parliament, on +conditions laid down by Parliament. + +William resented the decision of Parliament not to allow the Crown a +revenue for life, but to vote an annual supply; but the decision was +adhered to, and has remained in force ever since. The Mutiny Act, passed +the same year, placed the army under the control of Parliament, and the +annual vote for military expenses has, in like manner, remained. + +The Toleration Act (1689) gave Nonconformists a legal right to worship in +their own chapels, but expressly excluded Unitarians and Roman Catholics +from this liberty. Life was made still harder for Roman Catholics in +England by the Act of 1700, which forbade a Catholic priest, under penalty +of imprisonment for life, to say mass, hear confessions, or exercise any +clerical function, and denied the right of the Catholic laity to hold, buy +or inherit property, or to have their children educated abroad. The +objection to Roman Catholics was that their loyalty to the Pope was an +allegiance to a "foreign" ruler which prevented their being good citizens +at home. Against this prejudice it was useless to point to what had been +done by Englishmen for their country, when all the land was Catholic, and +all accepted the supremacy of the Pope. It was not till 1778 that the first +Catholic Relief Bill was carried, a Bill that "shook the general prejudice +against Catholics to the centre, and restored to them a thousand +indescribable charities in the ordinary intercourse of social life which +they had seldom experienced." + +The last Roman Catholic to die for conscience' sake was Oliver Plunket, +Archbishop of Armagh, who was executed at Tyburn, when Charles II. was +King, in 1681. After the Revolution, Nonconformists and Catholics were no +longer hanged or tortured for declining the ministrations of the +Established Church, but still were penalised in many lesser ways. But the +spirit of the eighteenth century made for toleration, and the Whigs were as +unostentatious in their own piety as they were indifferent to the piety of +others. + +The killing of "witches," however, went on in Scotland and in England long +after toleration had been secured for Nonconformists. As late as 1712 a +woman was executed for witchcraft in England.[67] + +GROWTH OF CABINET RULE + +William III. began with a mixed ministry of Whigs and Tories, which +included men like Danby and Godolphin, who had served under James II. But +the fierce wrangling that went on over the war then being waged on the +Continent was decidedly inconvenient, and by 1696 the Whigs had succeeded +in driving all the Tories--who were against the war--out of office. Then +for the first time a united ministry was in power, and from a Cabinet of +men with common political opinions the next step was to secure that the +Cabinet should represent the party with a majority in the House of Commons. +Our present system of Cabinet rule, dependent on the will of the majority +of the Commons, is found in full operation by the middle of the eighteenth +century. The fact that William III., George I., and George II. were all +foreigners necessitated the King's ministers using considerable powers. But +George III. was English, and effected a revival in the personal power of +the King by his determination that the choice of ministers should rest with +the Crown, and not with the House of Commons. He succeeded in breaking up +the long Whig ascendancy, and so accustomed became the people to the King +making and unmaking ministries, that on George IV.'s accession in 1820 it +was fully expected the new King would turn out the Tories and put in Whigs. +William IV. in 1835 did what no sovereign has done since--dissolved +Parliament against the wish of the government. + +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 formulæ, 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 £ on incomes between £50 to +£500; 6d. on incomes between £500 and £1,000; an additional 6d. up to +£4,000; and then 1s. on every additional £1,000 until we get to an income +tax of 20s. in the £ on an income of £22,000 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. + +[Illustration: THE GORDON RIOTS + +_From the Painting by Seymour Lucas, R.A._] + +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 £50 +tenants at will; and settled the borough franchise on a uniform +qualification of occupation in a house of £10 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 £7 +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 £10 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. + +While Liberals urge "one man, one vote" as the more democratic arrangement, +Conservatives reply by asking for "one vote, one value"--that is, a new +redistribution of seats, for in the last twenty-five years there have been +deep and extensive changes in the distribution of populations, and Ireland +in particular is over-represented, it is maintained. But then the +representation of Ireland in the House of Commons was really guaranteed by +the Act of Union, 1800.[85] + +WORKING-CLASS REPRESENTATION IN PARLIAMENT + +With the extension of the franchise the change in the _personnel_ of the +House of Commons has become marked. The more wealthy of the middle class +entered in considerable numbers after 1832; the Acts of 1867 and 1884 made +the entry of the workman inevitable. The miners were the first to send +Labour representatives to Parliament, and to-day their members outnumber +those of any other trade. Since 1892 industrial constituencies, chiefly in +Yorkshire, Lancashire, South Wales, and the mining districts, have gone on +steadily electing and re-electing working-class representatives--trade +union secretaries and officers for the most part--and with the formation of +a National Labour Representation Committee in 1900, these representatives +became a separate and distinct party--the Labour Party after 1906--in the +House of Commons. + +Enfranchisement to secure representation for the redress of grievances has +been the principle that has guided the English people towards democracy. +Both the middle class and the working class were convinced that +enfranchisement was necessary if the House of Commons was to be in any real +sense a representative assembly, and both have used enfranchisement for +obtaining representation in Parliament. The return of forty Labour Members +at recent general elections is evidence that a large electorate supports +the Labour Party in its desire to carry in Parliament legislation that will +make life a better thing for the labourer and his family; and in the House +of Commons the Labour Members have won a general respect. As a matter of +fact, the House of Commons to-day is in every way a more orderly, a more +intelligent, more business-like, and better-mannered assembly than it was +in the days before 1832. + +No stronger evidence of the value of Parliamentary representation to the +working-class can be offered than the large output of what may be called +labour legislation in recent years. It is true that Lord Shaftesbury's +benevolent and entirely disinterested activities promoted Factory Acts in +the first half of the nineteenth century, but in the last twenty years +measures for the amelioration of the lot of the workman have been +constantly before Parliament. + +REMOVAL OF RELIGIOUS DISABILITIES--CATHOLICS, JEWS, AND FREETHINKERS + +The nineteenth century was not only the century of popular enfranchisement; +it was the century that saw the removal of religious disabilities, and the +free admission to Parliament and to the Government of Roman Catholics, +Nonconformists, Jews, and Freethinkers. + +In the year 1800 Roman Catholics in England were excluded from Parliament, +from the franchise, from the magistracy, the Bar, the Civil Service, from +municipal corporations, and from commissions in the Army and Navy. Pitt was +willing to abolish these disabilities on the passing of the Act of Union, +and the Irish people were bitterly disappointed that the disabilities +remained. But George III. refused all assent to the proposals, and Pitt +resigned. Several times the House of Commons passed Catholic Relief Bills, +which were thrown out by the Lords, and it was not till 1829, when "the +English ministry had to choose between concession and civil war," that Peel +and the Duke of Wellington yielded and persuaded their party to admit +Catholics to Parliament and to the Civil and Military Services. + +The repeal of the Penal Laws against Roman Catholics--Acts of Elizabeth +that inflicted penalties on priests who said mass in England, and on Roman +Catholics who attended mass--took place in 1844, and in 1866 the +Parliamentary Oath was amended and made unobjectionable to Roman Catholics. + +A Roman Catholic is still excluded by law from the Crown, the Lord +Chancellorship, and the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, but many Roman +Catholics are members of Parliament--members of all parties--and the late +Lord Ripon, a Catholic, sat in a Liberal Cabinet. + +In 1846 Rothschild was elected as a Liberal M.P. for the City of London, +but the law did not permit him to take his seat. Then for some years Jewish +M.P.'s were allowed to take part in debates and sit on committees, but were +not allowed to vote. Finally, in 1858, the Lords, after rejecting the +measure for ten years, passed the Jews' Disabilities Bill, which removed +all restriction. The Right Hon. Herbert Samuel, M.P., is the first Jew to +sit in the Cabinet, for though Disraeli was of the Jewish race, he was a +Christian in belief. + +Although in 1800 various Acts on the Statute Book required Nonconformists +to subscribe to the religion of the Church of England before taking part in +municipal affairs, these Acts had long been a dead letter. All that was +done in the nineteenth century was to repeal these Acts, and to throw open +the universities and public offices to Nonconformists. It is only, however, +in recent years that Nonconformists have filled posts of high importance in +the Cabinet. + +The last attempt at restriction on the religious beliefs of members of +Parliament was made in the House of Commons itself, when Charles Bradlaugh, +after being duly elected M.P. for Northampton, was by the action of the +House excluded from his seat. Bradlaugh was a frank disbeliever in +Christianity, and the House of Commons refused to allow him either to take +the oath or make an affirmation. For five years (1880-5) the struggle +lasted--a Liberal Government being in power all the time--and three times +during that period the electors of Northampton triumphantly returned +Charles Bradlaugh as their member, only to be answered by resolutions of +refusal and expulsion passed by the House of Commons against their +representative. It was a repetition of the battle Wilkes had fought one +hundred and twenty years earlier, and it ended in the same way. A new +Parliament assembled in January, 1886 (after a general election in +November), the new Speaker (Mr. Peel) permitted Bradlaugh to take the oath +in the usual way, declined to allow any interference, and the battle was +over. Two years later a general Affirmation Bill was carried on the motion +of Bradlaugh, and became law. When Charles Bradlaugh lay dying in January, +1891, the House of Commons passed, without dissent, a resolution expunging +from the journals of the House the old resolutions of exclusion. + +THE ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN + +The nineteenth century then will always be noted as the era of steady +advance towards democracy, especially in England. Enfranchisement of the +workman, and his representation in Parliament, have transferred the +government of the country from an aristocracy to the middle class and the +working class, for to-day, alike in Parliament and in the permanent Civil +Service, men of the middle class predominate, assisted by those who served +apprenticeship in mine or workshop. The removal of religious disabilities +has ended the old rule that confined the business of the legislature and +the administration of justice to members of the Established Church of +England, and Roman Catholics, Jews, Nonconformists, and Freethinkers now +take their share in all public work. + +One disability only remains--the sex disability that denies the +parliamentary franchise to women. In the middle ages women were excused +from parliamentary attendance, but there was no notion that their powers +and privileges as landowners were shortened because, on account of their +sex, they were granted exemption from Parliament and from juries. In 1868 a +test case--Chorlton _v._ Lings--was brought, and the judges decided that +women householders were not to be registered as electors, and it was left +to Parliament to pass a Women's Enfranchisement Bill. From the time of John +Stuart Mill's advocacy in 1867 there have always been supporters of Women's +Suffrage in the House of Commons, and in the last five years these +supporters have been growing in numbers. Only the refusal of the Government +to give time for the discussion of the Bill in Committee has prevented a +Woman's Enfranchisement measure, which on several occasions has received a +second reading, from passing the House of Commons; and the announcement by +the present (1911) Government that full facilities for such discussion are +to be granted next year (1912) would indicate that the removal of political +sex disabilities is close at hand. Women are not asking for adult suffrage, +but are willing to receive enfranchisement on the terms that qualify men as +electors, and the Conciliation Bill, as it is called--because members of +every political party have agreed to make it their Bill--would place on the +roll of electors rather more than a million of women voters. + +Meantime, while waiting for the removal of the anti-democratic barrier that +excludes them from full political citizenship, women are admitted in the +United Kingdom to an equal share with men in all local government. Since +1869 women who are householders have enjoyed the municipal franchise, and +as Poor Law guardians and members of school boards, they have been freely +elected to sit side by side with men. In 1907 women were declared eligible +by Parliament for membership on county and borough councils, and for the +chairmanship of county councils and the mayoralty of boroughs. Since this +Act was passed we have seen women elected to the councils of great +cities--Manchester and Liverpool, for instance--and chosen as mayors in +several towns. No political movement in recent years has been of greater +public interest or importance than the agitation for "Votes for Women." The +demand for enfranchisement is based on the old constitutional ground of the +Parliamentarians of the seventeenth century--that those who are directly +taxed by Government must have some political control of the public +expenditure--and it is supported by the present leader of the Conservative +Party[86] on the ground that government can only be carried on in England +by consent of the governed. + +The demand for the parliamentary franchise is with us the expression of +that deep dissatisfaction at the unequal relations of the sexes that is +felt by many men, and by far more women, all over the civilised world. As +the middle-class man and the workmen of Great Britain were sure that they +could not get from Parliament an understanding of popular grievances, still +less fair treatment, until they possessed the right to choose their own +parliamentary representatives, so women are convinced that there can be no +adequate adjustment of these unequal relations until they too enjoy the +same privilege of citizenship; for enfranchisement and representation are +the two chosen instruments of democratic government in our day. + + * * * * * + + +CHAPTER VIII + +DEMOCRACY AT WORK + +LOCAL GOVERNMENT + +To-day in Great Britain, in America, in the self-governing colonies, and in +many European countries, we can sec the principles of democracy in working +order. + +The whole system of local government in Great Britain and Ireland is +essentially democratic. The municipal councils of all the large cities are +elected on household suffrage, and have enormous powers. There is now no +sex disability to prevent the election of women to these bodies, and, +except in the case of the clergy of the Established Church, who are +disqualified from sitting on town councils (but not on county or district +councils), all ratepayers are eligible for nomination. The result is that +on nearly every city council, and on a great number of county councils, +London borough councils, urban and rural district councils, boards of +guardians, and parish councils, there are working-class representatives, +while women members have been elected to the great councils of Liverpool +and Manchester, and sit on many boards of guardians and parish councils. + +All these councils are of recent creation. The Municipal Corporations Act +of 1835 placed the election of town councils for the first time in the +hands of the ratepayers, but the real reform of local government dates from +1888. In that year the Conservative Government established county and +district councils and Lord Rosebery became the first chairman of the London +County Council. Six years later the Liberals set up parish councils in the +rural districts, with parish meetings where the population did not exceed +three hundred. In 1899 the Conservatives displaced the old London vestries +by borough councils, and in 1902-3 abolished in England the school boards +created in 1870, and made the county council the local authority for public +elementary education. Scotland was allowed to retain its school boards, and +strong but unsuccessful opposition was made in London and the chief cities +to the suppression of the specially elected education authority. + +[Illustration: THE RIGHT HON. JOHN BURNS, M.P. + +_Photo: Moyse, Putney._] + +As far as rural England is concerned, county councils, district councils, +and parish councils are, generally speaking, very reluctant to put into +operation the wide powers they possess. The average county council, though +popularly elected, is composed in agricultural England of landowners and +the bigger farmers, who, as a common rule, do not favour a land programme +for labourers, and are anxious to keep down the rates. The rural district +council and board of guardians are equally averse from any display of +public enterprise, and the parish council, which often consists mainly of +labourers, rarely accomplishes anything except at the prompting, or with +the sanction, of the parochial landowner. The result is that allotments, +rural housing, village baths and washhouses, an adequate water supply, +public halls and libraries, are not regarded as the concern of rural +elected authorities, but are left to the private enterprise of landowners. +Civic pride, which glories in the public proprietorship of lands and +libraries, tramways and lodging-houses, waterworks and workmen's dwellings, +art galleries and swimming baths, and is a living influence in the +municipalities of, let us say, London, Glasgow, Liverpool, Leeds, Bradford, +Manchester, Birmingham, West Ham, and many a smaller borough, does not +exist in rural councils. To the farmer and the peasant public ownership is +a new and alien thing. The common lands and all the old village communal +life have gone out of the memory of rural England; but the feudal tradition +that the landowner is the real centre of authority has survived, and it is +the benevolent landowner who is expected to build cottages, grant +allotments, and see to the water supply, as fifty years ago he built and +managed the village school. Political organisation could break through this +tradition, but farmers and agricultural labourers are without this +organisation; and so the authority of the landowner remains, in spite of +the democratic constitution of local government. The people can allow their +power to remain in the hands of others, just as a king can be content to +reign without ruling, and the local government of rural England is an +oligarchy elected by a popular franchise. + +In the factory towns and the mining districts it is a very different +matter. Here the people are organised, and take their share in local +government. In the county of Durham, for instance, the working class +predominates on local councils, and the influence of trade unions prevails +in these assemblies wherever a strong Labour party exists. Mr. Joseph +Chamberlain began his public career on the Birmingham Town Council, and his +municipal services earned for him the enthusiastic support of Birmingham +for all his later political ventures. It would be difficult to mention the +name of a great statesman who laid the foundations of his fame in rural +local government. + +As in local government, so in the Imperial Parliament. Rural England sends +no Labour member to the House of Commons. Only in very exceptional cases +has a tenant farmer been elected. It is the social labour of the mine and +the mill that has produced the Labour member of Parliament. + +Mr. Joseph Arch made a valiant attempt to organise the agricultural +labourers of England, and from 1880 to 1890 a rural labourers' union, with +some thousands of members, was in existence. For a time this secured a rise +in wages, and when Mr. Arch was in Parliament, as a Liberal M.P. +(1885-1895), the rural labourer hoped for lasting improvement in the +conditions of life. But the Union fell to pieces, and Mr. Arch was not +strong enough single-handed to force the claims of his constituents on the +House of Commons. + +THE WORKMAN IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS + +To-day there are more than forty workmen in the House of Commons, and the +great majority of these have served an apprenticeship in municipal and +trade union offices. Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Lancashire, +Stafford, South Wales, Glasgow, Dundee, Leicester, Norwich and London, all +have their elected Labour members in Parliament, and a marked preference is +shown for the man who has proved his honesty and capacity in the +municipality, or as the leader of his trade union. All the miners' +representatives are tried and experienced men. Mr. G.N. Barnes, M.P., was +for ten years the general secretary of the Amalgamated Society of +Engineers. Mr. Clynes, M.P., was elected to the office of district +secretary of the Gas Workers' and General Labourers' Union twenty years +ago; Mr. Will Thorne, M.P., has been general secretary of the same union +since 1889, and has sat on the West Ham Corporation for more than sixteen +years. Mr. George Lansbury, M.P., and Mr. Will Crooks, M.P., are well known +for their work on the London County Council and on their local borough +council and board of guardians. Similarly with other Labour members of +Parliament. Their lives are marked by a sense of public responsibility, +with the result that in the House of Commons they are grave, business-like, +and undemonstrative. The Labour members do not make "scenes"; they respect +the rules of the House and the dignity of the National Assembly, partly +because they are all in sober middle age, but more because they have learnt +that public business can only be carried on by due observance of order; and +they are in Parliament to get business done for their constituents, to +promote legislation that will make life easier for the working class. When +Mr. Victor Grayson, in the exuberance of youth, and with a passion that +blazed out against the misery of the poor, made a "scene" in the House of +Commons, and was expelled, the Labour members were quite sincere in their +disapproval. They understood, with a wider knowledge than Mr. Grayson +possessed, that "scenes" alienated sympathy in the House, were not helpful +in debate, and were not popular with the electors. + +The member who would succeed in the House of Commons must respect the +usages of the House, and show himself loyal to its laws of debate. As long +as this respect and loyalty are shown the Labour member is accepted by his +fellow-members as one who has been elected to the greatest club in the +world, and is justly entitled to all the privileges of membership. For the +British House of Commons is a democratic assembly, and in its collective +pride it cares nothing for the opinions or social rank of its members. All +it asks is that the newly-elected member should be alive to the honour of +membership, should be modest in his bearing, and should as soon as possible +"catch the tone of the House." He may be a labourer, or the son of a belted +earl; the House is indifferent so long as his parliamentary manners are +good. + +The House of Commons is a far more orderly assembly than it was a hundred +years ago; it is more sober and less noisy, and the arrival of Labour +members has increased rather than diminished its good behaviour. It is also +a far more industrious assembly, and the influence of the Labour party +compels an amount of legislation that honourable members would have thought +impossible fifty years ago. + +WORKING-CLASS LEADERS IN PARLIAMENT + +Three representative working-class leaders in the House of Commons stand +out pre-eminently in contemporary politics--the Right Hon. John Burns, Mr. +J. Keir Hardie, and Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald. The Right Hon. D. Lloyd George +is conspicuous rather as the representative of the industrious +Nonconformist middle class, but the success of his career is no less +significant of the advance of democracy. The very Cabinet is now no longer +an aristocratic committee, and the highest offices of executive government +are held by men who are neither wealthy nor of distinguished family. + +Two working-class leaders of an earlier generation--the Right Hon. T. Burt, +M.P., and Mr. H. Broadhurst--held office as Under-Secretaries in the +Liberal Government of 1892-5; but Mr. John Burns is the first trade +unionist to sit in the Cabinet. He, too, might have been an Under-Secretary +in the days of that short-lived Ministry, but decided, with characteristic +vigour, that if he was fit to be an Under-Secretary he was fit for the +Cabinet. At the close of 1905 the opportunity came, and the offer of Sir H. +Campbell-Bannerman to preside over the Local Government Board was promptly +accepted. The workman first took his place in the Cabinet when Mr. John +Burns, at the age of forty-seven, went to the Local Government Board--to +the complete satisfaction of Mr. Burns. For the robust egoism of Mr. Burns +is largely a class pride. His invincible belief in himself is part of an +equally invincible belief in the working class. His ambitions thrive on the +conviction that whatever Mr. John Burns does, that the working class does +in the person of their representative. Always does he identify himself with +the mechanics and labourers with whom his earlier years were spent, and by +whose support he has risen to office. The more honours for Mr. John Burns, +the more does it seem to this stalwart optimist that the working class is +honoured. He arrays himself in court dress at the palaces of kings, +receives honorary degrees at Universities, and is kept before the public by +the newspaper paragraphist, without wincing or pretending to dislike it. +Why should the workman not be esteemed by kings and universities? Mr. Burns +asks. So great is his self-respect that the respect of others is taken as a +matter of course. Much of the criticism that has been directed against Mr. +John Burns misses the mark, because it does not recognise that the motive +power at work all the time in his career is the triumph of his class. It is +the triumph of a member of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, of a +London workman, that Mr. John Burns beholds with unconcealed pleasure in +his own success. + +There are drawbacks, of course, to this complete self-satisfaction. Since +the workman has triumphed in the person of Mr. John Burns, the working +class would do well to follow his example, and heed his advice on all +matters affecting its welfare, Mr. Burns argues. The failures of +working-class life and the misery of the poor are due to the lack of those +virtues that he possesses, he is apt to maintain. Hence Mr. Burns is hated +as a Pharisee in certain quarters when he extols self-reliance and total +abstinence as essential to working-class prosperity, and points to gambling +and strong drink as the root of all evil in the State. It is sometimes +urged that Mr. Burns over-praises his own merits; but the fault is really +in the opposite direction; he does not appreciate sufficiently that the +gifts he possesses--the gifts he has used so fully and so freely--are +exceptional. These gifts are a powerful physique, a great voice, a +tremendous energy, and a love of literature; and they are not the common +equipment of the skilled mechanic and the labourer. True, they are often +wasted and destroyed when they do exist; and in the case of Mr. Burns a +strongly disciplined will has made them abundantly fruitful. But from the +first the physique, the voice, and the untiring energy were far above those +that fall to the lot of the average workman; and the love of books stored +the mind with rich supplies of language to be drawn upon when speeches were +to be made. Not as an administrator at the Local Government Board has Mr. +Burns become famous. His fame as a champion of the working class was +established by popular ovations in Hyde Park and at dock gates. Battersea +has been won and held by the speeches of its member. It is not the mighty +voice alone, silencing interruption often enough by sheer volume of sound, +but the plainly pointed epigram, the ready jest and the quick repartee that +endear Mr. John Burns' speeches to the multitude. His sayings and phrases +are quoted. His wit is the wit of the Londoner--the wit that Dickens knew +and studied, the wit of the older cabmen and 'bus drivers, the wit of the +street boy. It is racy, it is understood, and the illustrations are always +concrete and massive, never vague or unsubstantial. Apt Shakespearian +quotations, familiar and unfamiliar, embellish the speeches. Personality, +vital personality, counts for so much in the orator of the market place. +The speaker must be alive to his audience, he must convince by his presence +no less than by his arguments. And Mr. Burns is so obviously alive. He +warms the shrunken, anæmic vitality of followers, and overpowers the +protests of enemies by sheer force of character. + +Mr. John Burns is at his real vocation when addressing a great multitude. +His energy finds an outlet in speech on those occasions, an outlet it can +never find in the necessary routine of office administration. He was made +for a life of action, and when once, in youth, he had thrown himself into +the active study of political and industrial questions, every opportunity +was seized for stating the results of that study. As a Social Democratic +candidate for Parliament, Mr. Burns polled 598 votes at West Nottingham in +1885. In 1886 he was charged (with Messrs. Hyndman, Champion, and Williams) +with seditious conspiracy--after an unemployed riot in the West End--and +acquitted. In 1887 he suffered six weeks imprisonment (with Mr. R.B. +Cunninghame Graham) for contesting the right of free speech in Trafalgar +Square. In 1889 came the great London dock strike, and, with Messrs. Mann +and Tillett, Mr. Burns was a chief leader of the dockers. Battersea +returned him to the London County Council in 1889 and to the House of +Commons in 1892. The Liberal Party promised a wider sphere of work than the +Socialists could offer; political isolation was a barren business; and Mr. +Burns gradually passed from the councils of the trade union movement to the +Treasury Bench of a Liberal Ministry. But the Socialist convictions of +early manhood had a lasting influence on their owner. These convictions +have been mellowed by work; responsibility has checked and placed under +subjection the old revolutionary ardour; experience finds the road to a +co-operative commonwealth by no means a quick or easy route, and admits the +necessity of compromise. But there is still a consciousness of the working +class as a class in the speeches of Mr. Burns; and there is still the +belief expressed that the working class must work out their own salvation, +and that it is better the people should have the power to manage their own +national and municipal affairs, and the wisdom to use that power aright, +rather than that a benevolent bureaucracy should manage things for them. +Mr. John Burns is an older man by twenty-five years than he was in the +stormy days of the Trafalgar Square riots, and he is now a Privy Councillor +and Cabinet Minister, but his character is little changed. His speeches on +the settlement of the great Dock Strike of August, 1911, are the speeches +of the man of 1889. Parliamentary life made sharper changes in the minds of +Gladstone and Mr. Joseph Chamberlain than it has made in the mind of the +Right Hon. John Burns. But Mr. Burns never admits that he possesses health +and vigour beyond the average. + +A working class leader of vastly different qualities is Mr. J. Keir Hardie, +M.P. He, too, no less significant of democracy, stands as the +representative of his class, claims always to be identified with it, to be +accepted as its spokesman. A Lanarkshire miner and active trade unionist, +Mr. Hardie has striven to create a working-class party in politics +independent of Liberals and Conservatives; to him, more than to any other +man, the existence of the Independent Labour Party and the Parliamentary +Labour Party--the latter consisting of the Independent Labour Party and the +trade unions--may justly be said to be due. The political independence of +an organised working class has been the one great idea of Mr. Hardie's +public life. Not by any means his only idea, for Mr. Hardie has been the +ever-ready supporter of all democratic causes and the faithful advocate of +social reforms; but the _great_ idea, the political pearl of great price, +for which, if necessary, all else must be sacrificed. Only by this +independence can democracy be achieved, and a more equal state of society +be accomplished--so Mr. Hardie has preached to the working people for the +last twenty-five years at public meetings and trade union congresses, +travelling the length and breadth of Great Britain in his mission. + +There is something of the poet in Mr. Keir Hardie but much more of the +prophet, and withal a good deal of shrewd political common sense. Where Mr. +John Burns wants, humanly, the approval and goodwill of his friends and +neighbours for his work, Mr. Keir Hardie is content with the assurance of +his own conscience; and in times of difficulty he chooses rather to walk +alone, communing with his own heart, than to seek the consolations of +social intercourse. + +Mr. Burns is a citizen of London, a lover of its streets, at home in all +its noise, a reveller in its festivities. Mr. Hardie belongs to his native +land; he is happier on the hills of Lanarkshire than in the Parliament of +Westminster; solitude has no terrors for him. Both men entered the House in +1892. Personal integrity, blameless private life, and a doggedness that +will not acknowledge defeat, have had much to do with the success that both +have won. For if Mr. Hardie remains a private member of the House of +Commons while Mr. Burns is a Cabinet Minister, Mr. Hardie has lived to see +an independent Labour Party of forty members in Parliament, and has himself +been its accredited leader. + +Again, exceptional gifts may be noted. An eloquence of speech, a rugged +sincerity that carries conviction, a love of nature and of literature--all +these things, controlled and tempered by will and refined by use, have won +for Mr. Hardie a high regard and an affection for the cause he champions. +For years Mr. Hardie was misrepresented in the Press, abused by political +opponents and misunderstood by many of the working class. From 1895 to 1900 +he was out of Parliament, rejected by the working-class electorate of South +West Ham. But nothing turned Mr. Hardie from his policy of independence, or +shook his faith in the belief that only by forming a political party of +their own could the working people establish a social democracy. Merthyr +Tydvil re-elected him to the House of Commons in 1900 at the very time when +he was braving a strong public opinion by denouncing the South African War; +and for Merthyr Mr. Hardie will sit as long as he is in Parliament. + +It may safely be said that Mr. Hardie will never take office in a Liberal +Ministry. The sturdy republicanism that keeps him from court functions and +from the dinner parties of the rich and the great, and the strong +conviction that Labour members do well to retain simple habits of life, are +not qualities that impel men to join Governments. + +Visionary as he is--and no less a visionary because he has seen some +fulfilment of his hopes--so indifferent to public opinion that many have +exclaimed at his indiscretions, with a religious temperament that makes him +treat his political work as a solemn calling of God and gives prophetic +fire to his public utterances, Mr. Keir Hardie may remain a private member +of Parliament; but he also remains an outstanding figure in democratic +politics, conspicuous in an age that has seen the working class rising +cautiously to power. Mr. Hardie's influence with the politically minded of +the working class has contributed in no small degree to the changes that +are now at work. The ideal of a working class, educated and organised, +taking up the reins of government and using its power in sober +righteousness, has been preached by Mr. Hardie with a fervour that commands +respect. He has made an appeal that has moved the hearts of men and women +by its religious note, and hence it is very considerably from the ranks of +Nonconformists with Puritan traditions that the Independent Labour Party +has been recruited. Mr. Hardie is now fifty-five years of age. He has never +been afraid of making mistakes, and he has never sought the applause of +men. He has succeeded in arousing large numbers of people from a passive +allegiance to the party governments of Liberals and Conservatives, and +constrained them to march under a Labour banner at political contests. +Whether the Labour Party in Parliament will remain a separate organisation +or will steadily become merged in the Liberal Party, forming perhaps a +definite left wing of that party: whether a sufficiently large number of +voters will ever be found to make the Labour Party anything more than a +group in Parliament: and whether the Independent Labour movement is not +passing as Robert Owen's socialist movement and as the Chartist movement +passed away in the middle of the nineteenth century, are questions that are +yet to be answered. Democracy will go its own way in spite of the prophets. +In any case, the work of Mr. Keir Hardie has been fruitful and valuable. +For it has made for a quickened intelligence, and a more exalted view of +human life amongst the working people; and it has increased the sense of +personal and civic responsibility. It has made for civilisation, in fact, +and it has insisted on the importance of things that democracy can only +forget to its own destruction. + +The third distinguished working-class leader in Parliament is Mr. J. Ramsay +MacDonald, the elected leader of the Labour Party, and its secretary since +its formation. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald is for the working class, but, though +born of labouring people, and educated in a Scotch board school, has long +ceased to be of them. Never a workman, and never associated with the +workman's trade union, Mr. MacDonald went from school teaching to +journalism and to a political private secretaryship, and so settled down +quickly into the habits and customs of the ruling middle class. Marriage +united him still more closely with the middle class, and strengthened his +position by removing all fear of poverty, and providing opportunities for +travel. + +From the first Mr. MacDonald's political life has been directed clearly to +one end--the assumption of power to be used for the social improvement of +the people. And this ambition has carried him far, and may carry him +farther. With the industry and persistence that are common to his race, Mr. +MacDonald has taken every means available to educate himself on all +political questions; with the result that he is accepted to-day as one of +the best informed members of the House of Commons. He taught himself to +speak, and his speeches are appreciated. He taught himself to write, and +his articles on political questions have long been welcome in the monthly +reviews, and his books on Socialism are widely read. Twenty years ago the +Liberal Party promised no political career to earnest men like Mr. +MacDonald, men anxious for social reform. The future seemed to be with the +Socialists, and with the Independent Labour Party. When the Liberal +downfall came in 1895, it was thought that the fortunes of Liberalism were +ended. Native prudence has restrained Mr. Ramsay MacDonald from pioneering, +but once the Independent Labour Party, of Mr. Keir Hardie's desire, was set +going, and promised an effectual means for political work, Mr. MacDonald +joined it, and did well to do so. As an ordinary Liberal or Radical Member +of Parliament, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald would never have had the opportunities +the Labour Party has given him. He only entered the House of Commons in +1906--at the age of forty--and already as leader of the Labour Party he is +a distinguished Parliamentary figure, of whose future great things are +foretold. + +Mr. MacDonald has studied politics as other people study art or science. He +has trained himself to become a statesman as men and women train themselves +to become painters and musicians. He has learnt the rules of the game, +marked the way of failure and the road to success, and his career may be +pondered as an example to the young. No generous outburst of wrath +disfigures Mr. MacDonald's speeches, no rash utterance is ever to be +apologised for, no hasty impulse to be regretted. In the Labour movement +Mr. MacDonald won success over older men by an indefatigable industry, a +marked aptitude for politics, and by an obvious prosperity. Other things +being equal, it is inevitable that in politics, as in commerce, the needy, +impecunious man will be rejected in favour of the man with an assured +balance at the bank, and the man of regular habits preferred before a +gifted but uncertain genius. The Socialist and Labour movements of our time +have claimed the services of many gifted men and women, and the annals of +these movements are full of heroic self-sacrifice. But an aptitude for +politics was not a distinguishing mark of Socialists, and therefore Mr. +MacDonald's experience and abilities gave him at once a prominent place in +the council of the Independent Labour Party, and soon made him the +controlling power in that organisation. With the formation of the National +Labour Party a very much wider realm was to be conquered, and Mr. MacDonald +has been as successful here as in the earlier Independent Labour Party. But +now the Labour Party having made Mr. MacDonald its chairman, it can do no +more for him. He is but forty-five years old, his health is good, his +talents are recognised; by his aversion from everything eccentric or +explosive, the public have understood that he is trustworthy. We may expect +to see Mr. Ramsay MacDonald a Cabinet Minister in a Liberal-Labour +Government. It may even happen that he will become Prime Minister in such a +Government. He is a "safe" man, without taint of fanaticism. His sincerity +for the improvement of the lot of the poor does not compel him to +extravagant speech on the subject, and his imagination is sufficient to +exclude dullness of view. He has proved that the application of Socialist +principles does not require any violent disturbance of the existing order, +and is compatible with social respectability and political authority. A +public opinion that would revolt against the notion of an ex-workman +becoming Prime Minister would not be outraged in any way by Mr. MacDonald +holding that office. Mr. Burns and Mr. Hardie have remained in their own +and in the public eye representatives of the working class, all education +notwithstanding. Mr. MacDonald has long cut himself off from the labouring +class of his boyhood. He has adapted himself easily and naturally to the +life and manners of the wealthier professional classes, and he moves +without constraint in the social world of high politics, as one born to the +business. No recognition of the workman is possible in Mr. Ramsay +MacDonald's case, and this fact is greatly in his favour with the +multitudes who still hold that England should be ruled by "gentlemen." + +The Right Hon. D. Lloyd George is a striking figure in our new democracy, +and his character and position are to be noted. It was not as a labour +representative but as the chosen mouthpiece of the working middle class, +enthusiastic for Welsh nationalism, that Mr. Lloyd George entered +Parliament in 1890, at the age of twenty-seven. With his entry into the +Cabinet, in company with Mr. John Burns, at the Liberal revival in 1905, +government by aristocracy was ended; and when Mr. Lloyd George went from +the Board of Trade to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, startling +changes were predicted in national finance. These predictions were held to +have been fulfilled in the Budget of 1909. The House of Lords considered +the financial proposals of the Budget so revolutionary that it took the +unprecedented course of rejecting the Bill, and thus precipitated the +dispute between the two Houses of Parliament, which was brought to a +satisfactory end by the Parliament Act of 1911. Romantic and idealist from +the first, and with unconcealed ambition and considerable courage, Mr. +Lloyd George, with the strong backing of his Welsh compatriots, fought his +way into the front rank of the Liberal Party during the ten years +(1895-1905) of opposition. More than once Mr. George pitted himself against +Mr. Joseph Chamberlain in the days of the Conservative ascendancy and the +South African War, and his powers as a Parliamentary debater won general +acknowledgment. In youth Mr. Lloyd George, full of the fervour of Mazzini's +democratic teaching, dreamed of Wales as a nation, a republic, with +himself, perhaps, as its first president. Welsh nationalism could not breed +a Home Rule Party as Irish nationalism has done, and Mr. Lloyd George has +found greater scope for his talents in the Liberal Party. The Welsh +"question" has dwindled into a campaign for the Disestablishment of the +Church in Wales, a warfare of Dissenters and Churchmen, and to Mr. Lloyd +George there were bigger issues at stake than the position of the Welsh +Church. + +[Illustration: THE RIGHT HON. D. LLOYD GEORGE, M.P. + +_Photo: Reginald Haines, Southampton Row, W.C._] + +Already Mr. Lloyd George's Budget and his speeches in support of the Budget +have made the name of the Chancellor of the Exchequer familiar to the +people of Great Britain; and now, in the eager discussion on his Bill for +National Insurance, that name is still more loudly spoken. Hated by +opponents and praised by admirers, denounced and extolled, Mr. Lloyd George +enjoys the tumult he arouses. His passionate speeches for the poor provoke +the sympathy of the working class; his denunciations of the rich stir the +anger of all who fear social revolution. Hostile critics deny any +constructive statesmanship in Mr. Lloyd George's plans and orations, and +prophesy a short-lived tenure of office. Radical supporters hail him as a +saviour of society, and are confident that under his leadership democracy +will enter the promised land of peace and prosperity for all. Neutral minds +doubt whether Mr. Lloyd George is sufficiently well-balanced for the +responsibilities of high office, and express misgivings lest the era of +social reform be inaugurated too rapidly. The obvious danger of a fall +always confronts ambition in politics, but the danger is only obvious to +the onlooker. Pressing forward the legislative measures he has set his +heart upon, and impatient to carry out the policy that seems to him of +first importance to the State, Mr. Lloyd George pays little heed to the +criticism of friends or foes. A supreme self-confidence carries him along, +and the spur of ambition is constantly pricking. Political co-operation is +difficult for such a man, and an indifference to reforms that are not of +his initiation, and a willingness to wreck legislation that cannot bear his +name, are a weakness in Mr. Lloyd George that may easily produce a fall. +Only a very strong man can afford to say that a reform shall be carried in +his way, or not at all, in cheerful disregard of the wishes of colleagues +and followers. Mr. Lloyd George's attitude on the question of Women's +Suffrage is characteristic. Professing a strong belief in the justice of +women's enfranchisement, he assumes that he can safely oppose all Women's +Suffrage Bills that are not of his framing, even when these Bills are the +work of ardent Liberals. He would have the measure postponed until he +himself can bring in a Reform Bill, to the end that the enfranchisement of +women may be associated with his name for all time. + +It is dangerous to the statesman, the ambition that finds satisfaction less +in the success of a party or the triumph of a cause, than in the personal +victory. Dangerous, because it brings with it an isolation from friends and +colleagues. These come to stand coldly aloof, and then, if a slip occurs or +a mistake is made, and there comes a fall, no hands are stretched out to +repair the damage or restore the fallen. The statesman who is suspected of +"playing for his own hand" may laugh at the murmurs of discontent amongst +his followers while all goes well for him, but when he falls he falls +beyond recovery. No one can foretell the end of Mr. Lloyd George's career, +but his popularity with the multitude will not make up to him for the want +of support in Parliament should an error of judgment undo him. The pages of +political history are strewn with the stories of high careers wrecked in a +feverish haste for fame, that overlooked dangers close at hand; of eminent +politicians broken in the full course of active life by the mere +forgetfulness of the existence of other persons. A simple miscalculation of +forces, and from lofty station a minister tumbles into the void. + +The stability of the working-class leaders makes their future a matter of +fairly safe conjecture. Mr. Lloyd George, romantic in temperament, covetous +of honour, confident of popularity, but heedless of good-will alienated and +of positive ill-will created, has reached the Chancellorship of the +Exchequer. Will he climb still higher in office, or will he pass to the +limbo peopled by those who were and are not? Time alone can tell. But in +this year of grace 1911 Mr. Lloyd George, incarnation of the hard-working +middle class, is a very distinct personality in the government of the +country, and his presence in the Cabinet a fact in the history of +democracy. + +THE PRESENT POSITION OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS + +More than once since 1831 the House of Lords has come into conflict with +the House of Commons when a Liberal Government has been in power. A +compromise was effected between the two Houses over the Disestablishment of +the Irish Church in 1869, the Lords, on the whole, giving way. When the +Lords proposed to "amend" the Army Reform Bill (for abolishing the purchase +of commissions) in 1871, Gladstone overpowered their opposition by advising +the Crown to cancel the Royal Warrant which made purchase legal, and to +issue a new warrant ending the sale of commissions. This device completely +worsted the House of Lords, for a refusal to pass the Bill under the +circumstances merely deprived the holders of commissions of the +compensation awarded in the Bill. The Army Reform Bill became law, but +strong objection was taken by many Liberals to the sudden exercise of the +Royal Prerogative. In 1884 the Lords refused to pass the Bill for the +enfranchisement of the rural labourer unless a Bill was brought in at the +same time for a redistribution of seats. After some discussion Gladstone +yielded, the Redistribution Bill was drawn up, and passed the Commons +simultaneously with the Franchise Bill in the Lords. + +Several Bills have been rejected or "amended" by the Lords since the +Liberals came into power in 1906, and the crisis came when the Budget was +rejected in 1909. In June, 1907, the following resolution was passed by the +House of Commons by 432 to 147 votes: "That in order to give effect to the +will of the people, as expressed by their elected representatives, it is +necessary that the power of the other House to alter or reject Bills passed +by this House should be so restricted by law as to secure that within the +limits of a single Parliament the final decision of the Commons shall +prevail." This resolution was embodied in the Parliament Bill of 1911. +Between 1907 and 1911 came (1) the rejection of the Budget, November, 1909; +(2) the General Election of January, 1910, and the return of a majority of +124 (Liberal, Labour, and Irish Nationalist) in support of the Government; +(3) the passing of resolutions (majority, 105) for limiting the Veto of the +Lords; (4) the failure of a joint Conference between leading Liberals and +Conservatives on the Veto question, followed by (5) the General Election of +December, 1910, and the return of the Liberals with a united majority of +126. + +The Parliament Bill declared that every Money Bill sent up by the Commons, +if not passed unamended by the Lords within a month, should receive the +Royal assent and become an Act of Parliament notwithstanding, and that +every Bill sent up for three successive sessions shall in the third session +become an Act of Parliament without the assent of the Lords. + +The Lords passed this Bill with amendments which the Commons refused to +accept, and the Parliament Bill was returned to the Lords in August. But, +as in 1832, the Prime Minister announced that he had received guarantees +from the Crown that peers should be created to secure the passage of the +Bill if it was again rejected; and to avoid the making of some three or +four hundred Liberal peers, Lord Lansdowne--following the example of the +Duke of Wellington--advised the Conservatives in the House of Lords to +refrain from opposition. The result of this abstention was that the Lords' +amendments were not persisted in, and the Bill passed the Lords on August +10th, 1911, by 131 to 114 votes. + +By this Parliament Act the Lords' veto is now strictly limited. The Lords +may reject a Bill for two sessions, but if the Commons persist, then the +Bill passes into law, whether the Lords approve or disapprove. + +The real grievance against the House of Lords, from the democratic +standpoint, has been that its veto was only used when a Liberal government +was in power. There is not even a pretence by the Upper House of revising +the measures sent from the Commons by a Conservative ministry; yet over and +over again, and especially in the last five years, Liberal measures have +been rejected, or "amended" against the will of the Commons, by the Lords +after the electors have returned the Liberals to power. The permanent and +overwhelming Conservative majority in the Lords acts on the assumption that +a Liberal ministry does not represent the will of the people, an assumption +at variance with the present theory of democratic government, and in +contradiction to the constitutional practice of the Crown. The great size +of the House of Lords makes the difficulty of dealing with this majority so +acute. In 1831 the creation of forty peerages would have been sufficient to +meet the Tory opposition to the Reform Bill; to-day it is said that about +four hundred are required to give the Liberals a working majority in the +Lords. The rapid making of peers began under George III., but from 1830 to +the present day Prime Minister after Prime Minister has added to the +membership of the House of Lords with generous hand. Satire, savage and +contemptuous, has been directed against the new peers by critics of various +opinions, but still the work of adding to the House of hereditary +legislators goes gaily on, and Liberal Prime Ministers have been as active +as their Tory opponents in adding to the permanent Conservative majority in +the Lords; for only a small minority of Liberal peers retain their +allegiance to the Liberal Party. + +Thackeray gave us his view of the making of peers in the years when Lord +Melbourne and his Whig successors were steadily adding to the Upper House. +(Between 1835 and 1841 Melbourne made forty-four new peers, and +twenty-eight more were added by 1856.) + +"A man becomes enormously rich, or he jobs successfully in the aid of a +Minister, or he wins a great battle, or executes a treaty, or is a clever +lawyer who makes a multitude of fees and ascends the bench; and the country +rewards him for ever with a gold coronet (with more or less balls or +leaves) and a title, and a rank as legislator. 'Your merits are so great,' +says the nation, 'that your children shall be allowed to reign over us, in +a manner. It does not in the least matter that your eldest son is a fool; +we think your services so remarkable that he shall have the reversion of +your honours when death vacates your noble shoes.'" + +J.H. Bernard, in his "Theory of the Constitution" (1835), was no less +emphatic:-- + +"As the affair is managed now, the peerage, though sometimes bestowed as +the reward of merit, on men who have adorned particular professions, is yet +much more frequently--nine times out of ten--employed by the minister of +the day as his instrument to serve particular views of public policy; and +is often given to actual demerit--to men who hire themselves out to do his +commands through thick and thin. The peerage is now full of persons who +have obtained possession of it by disreputable means." + +But in spite of satire and hostile criticism members of the House of Lords +have always enjoyed a considerable social popularity. They are widely +esteemed for their titles, even by those who denounce hereditary +legislators and desire to abolish the Second Chamber. + +Disraeli created six new peers in 1867-8, and seventeen more from 1875 to +1880, in addition to conferring the earldom of Beaconsfield on himself. Yet +Disraeli had written in "Coningsby" (1844):-- + +"We owe the English peerage to three sources: the spoliation of the Church, +the open and flagrant sale of its honours by the elder Stuarts, and the +borough-mongering of our own times. Those are the three main sources of the +existing peerage of England, and, in my opinion, disgraceful ones." + +Gladstone made fifty peers in his four premierships, and Mr. Herbert Paul, +the Liberal historian of "Modern England," makes the following comments:-- + +"No minister since Pitt had done so much as Mr. Gladstone to enlarge and +thereby to strengthen the House of Lords. + +"Mr. Gladstone was lavish in his distribution of peerages, and rich men who +were politically active, either in the House of Commons or behind the +scenes, might hope to be rewarded with safe seats elsewhere." + +[Illustration: THE PASSING OF THE PARLIAMENT BILL IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS + +_From the Drawing by S. Begg._] + +Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman exceeded all previous records of the last +century by making twenty new peers in less than two years--1905 to +1907--and Mr. Asquith maintained this vigorous policy by thirteen new +creations in the first year of his premiership. Already many of these +peers, whose titles are not more than six years old, vote with the +Conservatives. Great Britain is now the only country in the world that +combines a democratic form of government with a second chamber of +hereditary legislators, and many proposals are on foot for the reform of +the House of Lords. While the Conservatives are more anxious to change the +constitution of the Upper House, and to make it a stronger and more +representative assembly, the Liberals prefer that its power of veto should +be abolished. No Act of Parliament was required to abolish the veto of the +Crown on Acts of Parliament, but the growth of a democratic public opinion +did not prove strong enough to end the veto of the Lords on the Bills +passed by a Liberal majority in the Commons, and therefore the Parliament +Act was passed. + +THE POPULARITY OF THE CROWN + +The popularity of the Crown has become increasingly wider and more general +in the years that have seen the British people steadily taking up the work +of self-government. The fear of a hostile demonstration by the inhabitants +of London kept William IV. from visiting the Mansion House in 1830, and the +death of that monarch in 1837 evoked no national mourning. Queen Victoria, +unknown to the people on her accession, had the very great advantage of +Lord Melbourne's political advice in the early years of her reign. Her +marriage, in 1840, with the Prince Consort--who himself learnt much from +Melbourne--brought a wise counsellor to the assistance of the throne. "I +study the politics of the day with great industry," wrote the Prince +Consort. "I speak quite openly to the Ministers on all subjects, and +endeavour quietly to be of as much use to Victoria as I can." The Prince +Consort saw quickly that "if monarchy was to rise in popularity, it could +only be by the sovereign leading a good life, and keeping quite aloof from +party." The days of a profligate court and of "the King's friends" in +politics were past and gone; the royal _influence_ was to succeed the royal +_prerogative_.[87] + +The aloofness from political partisanship has been faithfully maintained by +the successors of Queen Victoria, and great as the royal influence may be +in the social life of the wealthier classes, it is certain that no such +influence operates in the casting of votes by the people at Parliamentary +elections. No one suspects the King of desiring the return of Liberals over +Tories, or of favouring the Tory programme rather than the Liberal; and +this neutrality is the surest guarantee of the continued popularity of the +Crown. + +For some years in the late 'seventies and early 'eighties of the nineteenth +century Republicanism was the creed of many ardent working-class Radicals +in England. Charles Bradlaugh was its chief exponent, and both Mr. Joseph +Chamberlain and the late Sir Charles Dilke were regarded as Republicans +before they entered Gladstone's Ministry in 1880. The Republican movement +waned before Bradlaugh's death. He himself was "led to feel that agitation +for an ideal form of government was less directly fruitful than agitation +against the abuses of class privilege; and in the last dozen years of his +life, his political work went mainly to reforms within the lines of the +Constitution."[88] + +With the rise of the Socialist movement in England in 1884-5, and the +celebration of the Queen's Jubilee in 1887, Republicanism became utterly +moribund, and nothing save an attempt on the part of the sovereign to take +a definite side in party politics, or a notorious lapse from the morals +required of persons in office of State, could revive it. + +The interest in Socialism was fatal to the Republican movement, because it +turned the enthusiasm of the active spirits in democratic politics from the +desire for radical changes in the _form_ of government, to the crusade for +economic changes, and the belief in a coming social revolution. The +existence of monarchy seemed a small and comparatively unimportant affair +to men and women who were hoping to get poverty abolished, and the +landlords and capitalists expropriated either by direct revolution, or by +the act of a House of Commons, dominated by working men with Socialist +convictions. + +The national celebrations at the Queen's Jubilee in 1887 marked the +beginning of the popular revival in pageantry and official ceremonial. In +the Church of England this revival began some forty years earlier, and it +has, in our day, changed the whole conduct of public worship. The revival +of Roman Catholicism in England with its processions and solemn ritual has +been equally significant. By gratifying the common human instinct for +spectacle and drama the monarchy has gained the popular affections. + +The Whigs scoffed at pageants and symbols; the earlier Puritans had +proscribed ceremonial as savouring of idolatry, and feared any +manifestation of beauty as a snare of the devil. In the latter half of the +nineteenth century, England began to throw off the shackles of Puritanism, +and to lose all interest in Whiggery. The new democracy was neither coldly +Deist, nor austerely Republican. It has shown no inclination to inaugurate +a reign of "pure reason" in religion or politics, but has boldly and +cheerfully adopted symbolism and pageantry. Friendly societies and trade +unions have their badges, banners, and buttons. The Roman Catholic Church +grows in popularity with the working class, and in many towns and cities +the Church of England and the Salvation Army are distinctly popular. On the +other hand, the Nonconformist churches confess annually to a decreasing +membership, and Secularist and Ethical societies have but the smallest +following. + +The royal processions and the pageantry of monarchy have provided a +spectacular display that average human nature enjoys. The symbols and +trappings of monarchy must be shown if the sovereign is to be popular; they +add to the gaiety of life, and people are grateful for the warmth of colour +they impart to our grey streets. The sovereign in encouraging the renewed +and growing love for pageants and ceremonial has discerned the signs of the +times. Modern democracy does not desire that kings or priests shall rule; +but it does require that they shall on State occasions and in the +performance of their office, be clad in kingly and priestly robes, and by +their proceedings enrich the dignity of public life, and the beauty of +public worship. + +THE DEMOCRATIC IDEALS: SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM + +The rise of Socialism in the 'eighties not only diverted the attention of +working-class leaders from political reform, but it substituted for the +destruction of monarchy and the House of Lords a reconstruction of society +as the goal of democracy; and the Socialist teaching has been of enduring +and penetrating influence. + +Fifty years earlier in the nineteenth century, Robert Owen had preached a +Socialist crusade with strenuous persuasion--but, ignoring politics, he +outlived the temporary success of his cause. The utopian Socialism of Owen +flourished and died, as Chartism, under different treatment, flourished and +died. + +The "scientific" Socialism of Karl Marx was planned on stronger +foundations. It brought a message of hope; it revealed how the change was +to be wrought that would "emancipate the workers of the world from the +slavery of wage service"; and it insisted that this change was inevitable. +On the Continent, and more particularly in Germany, the Social Democratic +Party has gained an enormous working-class support, and every election adds +to its strength. + +In England the Social Democratic Federation--now the Social Democratic +Party--was founded in 1884 by Mr. H.M. Hyndman; but in spite of its +untiring efforts, it has never won the sympathy of the trade unions, nor +the confidence of the working-class electorate. Its Parliamentary +candidatures rarely attract attention, and it is not a force in Labour +politics. Nevertheless, indirectly, the influence of the Social Democratic +Party has been very considerable. Mr. John Burns, and many another Labour +leader, have passed through its ranks, and a social conscience has been +made sensitive to the miseries of the poor, largely by the voices--that +will not be silenced--of this comparatively small company. + +The Fabian Society also began its work of educating public opinion to +Socialism in 1884, but, unlike the Social Democratic Federation, it made no +proposals for the creation of a Socialist Party or the organisation of the +working class into a separate political party. Mainly, its influence can be +seen in the increase of statistical knowledge and of State interference in +the conditions of life and labour in the working class. + +The Independent Labour Party was not formed till 1892, and while professing +Socialism, it has aimed rather at securing the return of labour members to +Parliament, and to local governing councils than at the conversion of the +working class to a dogmatic social democracy. Often frankly opportunist and +experimental, the Independent Labour Party and its offspring, the Labour +Party in the House of Commons, have followed the national custom in +politics of attacking and redressing evident evils, and have done this with +considerable success. + +But while the Socialists have compelled the attention of all classes to +existing social ills, and have made social reform the chief concern of all +politicians, the idea of a social democracy steadily recedes from the +political vision, and the conscious movement to Socialism falters. +Socialist workmen in Parliament or on city councils soon find themselves +absorbed in the practical work of legislation or administration, and learn +that there is neither leisure nor outlet for revolutionary propaganda. The +engrossing character of public work destroys the old inclination to break +up the existing order, for the Socialist member of Parliament, or city +councillor interested in his work, has become part of the machinery +responsible for the existing order, and without losing his sympathy for the +labouring people is content that the amelioration of society shall come, as +it now seems to him it must come, by slow and orderly stages and without +violence. The very return of so many Labour members to Parliament and to +local councils has damped down the fires of Socialism, by placing in +positions of authority and responsibility, and thereby withdrawing them +from the army of disaffection, the ablest leaders of the working-class +movement. The Labour member who cannot settle down to legislative or +administrative work, but attempts to play the agitator's part in the House +of Commons or the council chamber, is generally doomed to banishment from +official public life, and is allowed to remain an agitator. + +Mr. John Burns may be denounced as a renegade by Socialist critics, but a +working-class electorate returns him to Parliament. Mr. Cunninghame Graham +and Mr. Victor Grayson may be applauded for their consistency by Socialist +audiences, but working-class constituencies are loth to return such +representatives to the House of Commons. + +As Socialism quietly passes out of the vision of the political world, and +from a definite inspiration to democracy becomes a dim and remote +possibility of the future, Social Reform takes its place. Not only in Great +Britain, but throughout Europe, the social reformers or "revisionists" are +gaining the mastery over the scientific Marxian Socialists in democratic +politics. In Great Britain where "practical," or experimental, politics +have always prevailed over political theory, the passing of positive +Socialist dogma is naturally more obvious. Social Reform is now the cry of +Liberals and Conservatives alike. The old Liberal doctrines of _laissez +faire_, unrestricted competition, and the personal liberty of the subject +are as dead as the Stuart doctrine of the divine right of kings. The old +Liberal hostility to State interference in trade or commerce, and to +compulsory social legislation has melted away at the awakened social +conscience. It still has its adherents--Lord Cromer and Mr. Harold Cox +repeat the ancient watch-words of Victorian Liberalism, and they are +regarded with a respect mingled with curiosity, as strange survivals of a +far-off age--but no popular echo follows their utterances. Pensions for the +aged, better provision for the sick and the infirm, a more careful +attention to the well-being of children, national health, some cure for +destitution, and some remedy for unemployment--these are the matters that a +Liberal Government is concerned about to-day. And the Conservatives are no +less sincere in their willingness to help in these matters. Legislative +proposals for social reform are treated as non-party questions, and the +chief item in the Conservative programme, Tariff Reform, was adopted and is +advocated mainly as a social reform, a cure for industrial evils, and the +misery of unemployment. + +Socialism proposed the abolition of poverty, and the common ownership and +control of the land and the means of production, distribution, and exchange +as the solution of economic questions. + +Social Reform proposes to mitigate the hardships of life for the multitude, +and, while leaving land and capital in private hands, to compel by taxation +provision for the wants of the people. Its aim is the abolition of +destitution by State assistance to voluntary effort, and the gradual +raising of the standard of life. It does not propose to remove the cause of +poverty. + +Socialism would place the democracy in possession of the means of wealth. +Social Reform requires the State to tax wealth and provide for the people. +It promises a living wage, decent housing accommodation, an insurance +against unemployment, and security in old age, and leaves the question of +national ownership or private ownership to be settled by posterity. + +LAND REFORM AND THE SINGLE TAX + +Apart from the ideals of Socialism, the democratic ideal of a community +owning the full value of its land was presented by Henry George, an +American economist, in 1879, and his book "Progress and Poverty," was at +once received with enthusiasm by certain reformers in England and America. +George visited England in 1881, 1884, and 1889, and his visits resulted in +a strong movement for the taxation of land values. This movement has been +inspired by an ideal of a democratic community as definite as the Socialist +ideal, and it has grown steadily in popular favour as the justice of a tax +on land values has been recognised. "Progress and Poverty" is the bible of +the Land Reformers, as Marx's "Capital" is (or was) the bible of +Socialists. It is claimed that a tax on land values is the true remedy of +social and economic ills, and that democracy can eradicate the root-cause +of poverty by such a tax. In this belief the followers of Henry George have +preached the Single Tax, as it is called, with unquenchable fervour, and +the Liberal Party has been gradually won over--if not to the Single Tax, at +least to a tax on land values. Many Conservatives, too, favour the taxation +of land values in cities, and all the principal municipalities have +petitioned Parliament in favour of this method of taxation. But it is the +democratic ideals of Henry George that have been the life of the movement +for the Single Tax, and but for these ideals the movement would never have +become a living influence towards democracy, or inspired a social +enthusiasm. + +The charm about the Single Tax propaganda is that its ideals of democracy +do not discourage the practical politician and the average citizen from +supporting what seems a necessary and reasonable proposal. Without +committing themselves at all to Henry George's full scheme for the total +abolition of land monopoly by a tax of twenty shillings in the pound on all +land values, and without abandoning the common British suspicion of the +doctrinaire and the political idealist, the ordinary shopkeeper and +householder are quite of opinion that urban values in land can be taxed +legitimately for the benefit of the community, and that democracy would do +well to decree some moderate tax on land values for the relief of the +overtaxed non-landowner. + +So the taxation of land values is presented by its advocates as a social +reform more radical and democratic than all other social reforms, as a +reform that in fact would make democracy master of its own land, and the +people free from the curse of poverty; and it is accepted by the great mass +of working people as a just and useful method of raising revenue for local +and imperial needs. + +Socialism, social reform, the Single Tax--various are the ideals of a +democratic people at work at the business of government, and various are +the means proposed to establish the democracy in economic freedom. + + * * * * * + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE WORLD-WIDE MOVEMENT: ITS STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS + +EAST AND WEST + +The movement towards democracy is world-wide to-day, and the political +constitutions of the West are desired with fervour in the East. + +For generations there has been agitation in Russia for representative +government, and men and women--in countless numbers--have sacrificed +wealth, reputation, liberty, and life itself in the cause of political +freedom. On the establishment in 1906 of the Duma, a national chamber of +elected members, there was general rejoicing, because it seemed that, at +length, autocracy was to give place to representative government. But the +hopes of the political reformers were short lived. The Duma still exists, +but its powers were closely restricted in 1907, and the franchise has been +narrowed, to secure an overwhelming preponderance of the wealthy, so that +it is altogether misleading to regard it as a popular assembly. + +In Egypt and in India the Nationalist movements are directed to +self-government, and are led by men who have, in most cases, spent some +years at an English University, or have been trained at the English Bar. +Residence in England, and a close study of British politics make the +educated Indian anxious for political rights in his own country, similar to +those that are given to him in Great Britain. In England the Indian has all +the political rights of a British subject. He can vote for a member of +Parliament, he can even be a member of the House of Commons. On two +occasions in recent years, an Indian has been elected to Parliament: Mr. +Dadabhai Naoroji sat as Liberal M.P. for Finsbury, 1892-5; Sir M.M. +Bhownagree as a Conservative for Bethnal Green, 1895-1906. Back in his +native land, the Indian finds that he belongs to a subject race, and that +the British garrison will neither admit him to social equality, nor permit +him the right of legislation. Hence with eyes directed to Western forms of +government, the Indian is discontented with the bureaucracy that rules his +land, and disaffected from the Imperial power. But so many are the nations +in India, and so poverty-stricken is the great multitude of its peasantry +that the Nationalist movement can touch but the fringe of the population, +and the millions of India live patiently and contentedly under the British +Crown. Nevertheless, the national movement grows steadily in numbers and in +influence, for it is difficult for those who, politically minded, have once +known political freedom, to resign themselves to political subjection. + +In Egypt the Nationalist movement is naturally smaller and more +concentrated than in India and the racial divisions hinder its unity. Egypt +is nominally under the suzerainty of Turkey, though occupied by Great +Britain, and now that Turkey has set up a Constitution and a Parliament, +patriotic Egyptian politicians are impatient at the blocking out by the +British authorities of every proposal for self-government. + +As in India, so in Egypt: it is the men of education who are responsible +for the Nationalist movement. And in both countries it is the desire to +experiment in representative government, to test the constitutional forms +in common use in the West, and to practise the responsibilities of +citizenship, that stimulates the movement. The unwillingness of the British +Government to gratify this desire explains the hostility to British rule in +India and Egypt. + +Japan received a Constitution from the Emperor in 1890, and in 1891 its +Diet was formally opened with great national enthusiasm. It is a +two-chamber Parliament--a Council of nobles, and a popularly elected +assembly--and only in the last few years have the business men given their +attention to it. Although the Cabinet is influenced by Japanese public +opinion, it is not directly responsible to the Diet, but is the Ministry of +the Mikado. The resolution of the Japanese statesmen of forty years ago to +make Japan a world-power made Constitutional Government, in their eyes, a +necessity for the nation. + +In Europe, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark all possess democratic +constitutions, and only the removal of sex disabilities in the latter two +is needed to achieve complete adult suffrage. Finland established complete +democracy nine years ago, and, with equal electoral districts, complete +adult suffrage, and the free election of women equally with men to its +Diet, is a model democratic state. But the liberties of Finland are gravely +threatened by the Russian Government, and there is no security for the +Finns that their excellent self-government will be preserved. In Germany, +with universal manhood suffrage, the struggle is to make the Government +responsible to the elected Reichstag. + +The British self-governing Colonies show a tendency of democracy to +federate. The Australian Colonies are federated into a Commonwealth, and +their example has been followed by the South African Colonies. New Zealand +and Australia are at one in their franchise, which allows no barrier of +sex; but South Africa still restricts the vote to males. In Australia the +working class are in power, and the Commonwealth Prime Minister is a Labour +representative. There is no willingness to grant political rights to those +who are not of European race, either in South Africa or in Australia; and +the universal republic dreamed of by eighteenth century democrats, a +republic which should know no racial or "colour" bar, is not in the vision +of the modern colonial statesmen of democracy, who are frankly exclusive. +Only in New Zealand does a native race elect its own members to +Parliament--and four Maori M.P.'s are returned. + +TYRANNY UNDER DEMOCRATIC FORMS + +Experience has proved that democratic and republican forms of government +are no guarantee that the nation possesses political liberty. + +Mexico, nominally a republic under President Diaz, was in reality a +military autocracy of the severest kind. The South American Republics are +merely unstable monarchies, at the mercy of men who can manipulate the +political machinery and get control of the army. + +It is too early yet to decide whether the constitutional form of government +set up in Turkey in 1908, or the republic created on the abolition of +monarchy in Portugal in 1910, mark national movements to democracy. In +neither country is there evidence that general political freedom has been +the goal of the successful revolutionist, or that the people have obtained +any considerable measure of political power or civil liberty. Ambitious and +unscrupulous men can make full use of republican and democratic forms to +gain political mastery over their less cunning fellows, and no machinery of +government has ever yet been devised that will safeguard the weak and the +foolish from the authority of the strong and the capable. + +Those who put their trust in theories of popular sovereignty, and urge the +referendum and initiative as the surer instruments of democracy than +Parliamentary representation, may recall that a popular plebiscite +organised by Napoleon in 1802 conferred on him the Consulate for life; that +Louis Napoleon was made President of the French Republic in 1848 by a +popular vote, obtained a new constitution by a plebiscite in 1851, and a +year later arranged another plebiscite which declared him hereditary +Emperor, Napoleon III. France, where naturally Rousseau's theories have +made the deepest impression, has since the Revolution gloried in the right +of the "sovereign people" to overthrow the government, and its elected +representatives have been alternately at the mercy of dictators and social +revolutionists. + +On the whole, the stability of the British Government, rooted in the main +on the traditional belief in the representation of the electorate, would +seem to make more surely for national progress and wider political liberty +than the alternation of revolution and reaction which France has known in +the last hundred and twenty years. + +England has not been without its popular outbursts against what the +American poet called "the never-ending audacity of elected persons," but +these outbursts are commonly accepted as manifestations of intolerable +conditions; and while the outbursts are repressed means are taken by +Government to amend the conditions. When the Government fails to amend +things, the House of Commons takes the matter up; and if the Commons +neglect to do so, then the electors make it plain that amendment and reform +are necessary by returning men to Parliament pledged to change matters, and +by rejecting those who have failed to meet the situation. + +THE OBVIOUS DANGERS + +The dangers that threaten democracy are obvious. Universal adult suffrage, +short Parliaments, proportional representation, equal electoral districts, +second ballots--none of these things can insure democracy against +corruption. For a government which rests on the will of a people--a will +expressed by the election of representatives--is inevitably exposed to all +the evils attendant on the unruly wills and affections of the average man. + +The orator can play upon the feelings of the crowd, and sway multitudes +against a better judgment; and he has greater chance of working mischief +when a referendum or other direct instrument of democracy is in vogue than +he has when government is by elected representatives. For the party system, +itself open to plenty of criticism, constantly defeats the orator by the +superior power of organisation. Hence it frequently happens at +Parliamentary elections that a candidate whose meetings are enthusiastic +and well attended fails lamentably at the poll. His followers are a crowd; +they are not a party. They do not know each other, and they have not the +confidence that comes of membership in a large society. + +PARTY GOVERNMENT + +If the orator is a menace to the wise decisions of the people by a +referendum, the party organiser and political "boss" can easily be a curse +to representative government on party lines. By all manner of unholy +devices he can secure votes for his candidate and his party, and he has +raised (or lowered) the simple business of getting the people to choose +their representative into the art of electioneering. The triumph of +political principles by the election of persons to carry out those +principles becomes of less importance than the successful working of the +party machine, when the boss and the organiser are conspicuous. Patronage +becomes the method for keeping the party in power, and the promise of +rewards and spoils enables an opposition to defeat the Government and +obtain office. To be outside the party is to lose all chance of sharing in +the spoils, and to take an interest in politics means, under these +circumstances, to expect some consideration in the distribution of honours. + +The "spoils system" is notorious in America, but in England it has become +practically impossible for a man to take any serious part in politics +except by becoming part of the machine. An independent attitude means +isolation. To belong to a party--Liberal, Unionist, or Labour--and to +criticise its policy, or differ from its leaders, is resented as +impertinence. The machine is master of the man. A troublesome and dangerous +critic is commonly bought or silenced. He is given office in the +Government, or rewarded with a legal appointment; perhaps made a peer if +his tastes are in that direction. A critic who cannot command a +considerable backing among the electorate will probably be driven out of +public life. The disinterested activity in politics that puts the +commonwealth before party gain is naturally discouraged by the party +organisers. + +Yet when public interest in national affairs sinks to the merely sporting +instinct of "backing your candidate" at elections as a horse is backed at +race meetings, and of "shouting for your party" as men shout for their +favourite football team, or sinks still lower to the mercenary speculation +of personal gain or loss on election results, then another danger comes +in--the indifference of the average honest citizen to all politics, and the +cynical disbelief in political honesty. + +The warnings of John Stuart Mill against leaving politics to the +politicians and against the professional position may be quoted: + +"Representative institutions are of little value, and may be a mere +instrument of tyranny or intrigue when the generality of electors are not +sufficiently interested in their own government to give their vote; or, if +they vote at all, do not bestow their suffrages on public grounds, but sell +them for money, or vote at the beck of some one who has control over them, +or whom for private reasons they desire to propitiate. Popular elections as +thus practised, instead of a security against misgovernment, are but an +additional wheel in its machinery." + +Mill himself was a striking example of the entirely disinterested +politician, who, caring a great deal more for principles than for party, +finds little favour with the electors, and less with the party managers, +and retires from politics to the relief of his fellows. + +A general lack of interest in politics can prove fatal to democracy. The +party managers, without the fear of the electorate before their eyes, will +increase the number of salaried officials and strengthen their position by +judicious appointments. Nominally, these inspectors and officers will be +required for the public service, and the appointments will be justified on +patriotic grounds. There will be little criticism in Parliament, because +the party not in power will be anxious to create similar "jobs" when its +own turn comes. Besides, as the public pays for these officials, there is +no drain on the party funds; and this is a matter of congratulation to +party managers, who are always anxious not to spend more than they can help +on the political machinery. + +BUREAUCRACY + +But the horde of officials and inspectors will change democracy into +bureaucracy, and the discovery is sometimes made too late that a land is +ruled by permanent officials, and not by elected representatives. The +elected representatives may sit and pass laws, but the bureaucracy which +administers them will be the real authority. + +It may be an entirely honest and efficient bureaucracy, as free from +political partisanship as our British Civil Service and police-court +magistracy are, but if it is admitted to be outside the jurisdiction of the +House of Commons, and to be under no obedience to local councils, and if +its powers involve a close inquisition into the lives of the people, and +include the right to interfere daily with these lives, then bureaucracy and +not democracy is the actual government. + +A host of salaried political workers--agents, organisers, secretaries, +etc.--will make popular representative government a mere matter of +political rivalry, an affair of "ins and outs," and by this development of +the party system will exclude from active politics all who are not loyal to +the "machine," and are not strong enough to break it. But a host of public +officers--inspectors, clerks, etc.--paid out of the public funds will do +more than pervert representative government: they will make it subordinate +to the permanent official class; and bureaucracy, once firmly in the +saddle, is harder to get rid of than the absolutism of kings, or the rule +of an aristocracy. + +Yet a permanent Civil Service is better in every way in a democracy than a +Civil Service which lives and dies with a political party, and is changed +with the Cabinet. + +On the whole, the best thing for democracy is that the paid workers in +politics should be as few as possible, and the number of salaried state +officials strictly limited. The fewer the paid political workers, the fewer +people will be concerned to maintain the efficiency of the political +machine, and the more freely will the electorate act in the choice of its +representatives. The fewer the salaried officials of State, the less +inspection and restriction, and the less encouragement to habits of +submission in the people. Democracy must depend on a healthy, robust sense +of personal responsibility in its citizens, and every increase in the +inspectorate tends to diminish this personal responsibility, and to breed a +"servile state" that will fall a willing prey to tyranny and bureaucracy. + +Nevertheless, whilst in self-defence democracy will avoid increasing its +officials, it will distinguish between officials and employees. It is bound +to add to the number of its employees every year, as its municipal and +imperial responsibilities grow steadily larger, and these employees, +rightly regarded as public servants, cannot threaten to become our masters. + +WORKING-CLASS ASCENDANCY + +Still one more danger to democracy may be mentioned, and that is the notion +that from the working class must necessarily come our best rulers. + +"Rulers are not wise by reason of their number or their poverty, or their +reception of a weekly wage instead of a monthly salary or yearly income. It +is worse and more unpleasant and more dangerous to be ruled by many fools +than by one fool, or a few fools. The tyranny of an ignorant and cowardly +mob is a worse tyranny than the tyranny of an ignorant and cowardly clique +or individual. + +"Workers are not respectable or to be considered because they work more +with their hands or feet than with their brains, but because the work they +do is good. If it is not good work they do, they are as unprofitable as any +other wasters. A plumber is not a useful or admirable creature because he +plumbs (if he plumbs ignorantly or dishonestly, he is often either a +manslayer or a murderer), but because he plumbs well, and saves the +community from danger and damp, disease, and fire and water. Makers of +useless machine-made ornaments are, however 'horny-handed,' really +'anti-social persons,' baneful to the community as far as their bad work +goes; more baneful, possibly, than the consumers of these bad articles, +quite as baneful as the _entrepreneurs_ who employ them. + +"The only good institutions are those that do good work; the only good work +done is that which produces good results, whether they be direct, as the +plough-man's, or navvy's, or sailor's; or indirect, as the policeman, or +the schoolmaster, or the teacher of good art, or the writer of books that +are worth reading. A man is no better or wiser than others by reason of his +position or lack of position, but by reason of his stronger body, wiser +head, better skill, greater endurance, keener courage."[89] + +There it is. Democracy needs for its counsellors, legislators and +ministers, strength, wisdom, skill, endurance and courage, and must get +these qualities in whomsoever they are to be found. Democracy can afford +the widest range of choice in the election of popular representatives, or +it will never reach its full stature. + +In the choice of its representatives, a democracy will do well to elect +those who know the life of the working people, and who share its toils; +just as it will do well to shun the mere talker, and to seek out for itself +candidates for election rather than have candidates thrust upon its +attention by some caucus in London. But the main thing is that it should +first discern men and women of ability and of character and then elect them +for its representatives, rejecting those, it may be of more dazzling +qualities, who are unstable in mind and consumed with vanity. It would be +well if the elected representative were always an inhabitant of the county +or the borough, known to his neighbours, and of tested worth. True, the +prophet is often without honour in his own country, and a constituency acts +wisely in electing a representative of national repute. But to search for a +man of wealth who will subsidise every club and charitable institution in +the constituency, and to rejoice when such a candidate is procured from +some political headquarters, is a wretched proceeding in a democratic +state. The member who buys a constituency by his gifts will always feel +entitled to sell his constituents should occasion arise. + +Again, the delegate theory of representation can be a danger to democracy. + +A Parliamentary representative is something better than a mechanical +contrivance for registering the opinions of electors on certain subjects. +Otherwise all Parliamentary debate is a mockery. A representative he is of +the majority of electors, but he must act freely and with initiative. Often +enough he may be constrained to vote, not as many of his constituents would +prefer, but using his own judgment. Of course when the choice is between +obedience to the party whip and the wishes of his constituents, and +personal conviction is with the latter, then at all costs the decision +should be to stand by his constituents, or popular representation is a +delusion. + +To-day the pressure is far greater from the party whips than from the +constituents, especially when in so many cases election expenses are paid, +in part at least, from the party funds. And to overcome this constant +danger to popular representation a sure plan would be the payment of all +necessary election expenses out of the local rates, and the prohibition by +law of all payments by the candidate or by political associations. When +members are paid for their attendance in Parliament, far better would it +be, too, if such payment were made by the constituents in each case, and +not from the national exchequer.[90] Worse than the delegate theory is the +opinion that a representative of the people is in Parliament chiefly to +keep his party in power. Political parties are inevitable, and they are +effective and convenient when principles divide people. But popular +representation is older than a party system of government, and when it +becomes utterly subordinate to the welfare of parties it is time for a +democratic people to realise the possible loss of their instrument of +liberty. + +Great Britain is not partial to groups, it has always broadly been divided +politically into two camps, but a few men of strong independent judgment +are invaluable in a popular assembly. There need be no fear lest +governments totter and fall at the presence of men who dare to take a line +of their own, and to speak out boldly on occasion. The bulk of members of +Parliament will always cleave to their party, as the bulk of electors do, +and the dread of being thought singular is a potent influence on the +average man, in or out of Parliament. Democracy is in danger of losing the +counsel of its best men when it insists that its representatives must be +merely delegates of the electors, without minds or wills of their own; but +it is in greater danger if it allows its representatives to be nothing but +the tools of the party in power or in opposition. For when Parliamentary +representation is confined to those who are willing to be the mechanical +implements of party leaders and managers, the House of Commons becomes an +assembly of place-hunters and self-seekers, for whom the profession of +politics affords the gratification of vanity or enrichment at the public +expense. In such an assembly the self-respecting man with a laudable +willingness to serve the State is conspicuous by his absence. + +With a Press in the hands of party politicians, and with editors and +journalists engaged to write up their party through thick and thin, and to +write down every honest effort at political independence of mind, the +danger of losing from all political service the few rare minds that can ill +be spared is a very real and present danger. + +ON BEHALF OF DEMOCRACY + +"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance," and often enough we sleep at +our vigils. But when all the dangers and difficulties that beset democracy +are enumerated, and all its weak spots are laid bare, we can still hold +democracy to be the only suitable form of government for persons possessing +free will, and the representation of the people the most satisfactory +expression of democracy. + +Government by autocrat, by despotism, benevolent or otherwise, by expert +officials, or by an oligarchy of superior intelligences is irksome to the +average man or woman of reasonable education, and in each case has been +intolerable to the British people. They have all been tried and found +wanting--royal absolutism, aristocracy, military dictatorship, and only of +late have we been threatened by an expert bureaucracy. + +Parliamentary representation adapted, by the removal of disabilities of +creed and rank and income, to meet the demands of the nation, has been +proved by experience a clumsy but useful weapon for checking oppression. +Nowadays, we are using it less for defence against oppression, or as an +instrument for removing political grievances, and are testing its worth for +the provision of positive social reform. More and more it is required of +Parliament that means be found for getting rid of the ills around us, for +preventing disease and destitution, for promoting health and decency. + +And just because legislation is, at the prompting of a social conscience, +invading our homes and workshops, penetrating into prisons, workhouses, and +hospitals, touching the lives of all of us from the cradle to the grave, +the more imperative is it that our legislators should be chosen freely by +the widest electorate of men and women. We fall back on the old maxim: +"That which touches all shall be approved by all," and can perceive no +other way of obtaining that general approbation for the laws than by the +popular election of our representatives. + +Demagogues may exploit the popular will, the cunning and unscrupulous in +power may have us at their mercy, in our folly and indifference the nation +may be brought to grave losses; but still there is always the means of +recovery for the well-disposed while the vote remains in their hands. + +So it is that, in spite of obvious failings and shortcomings, democracy by +representative government remains for nations throughout the world that +have not yet tried it the goal of their political striving. We are alive to +the imperfections of democracy. It is no automatic machine for conferring +benefits in return for taxes. It is the creation of mankind, not a +revelation from heaven; and it needs, like all good human things, constant +attention and can bear many improvements. It has to be adjusted from time +to time to suit the growing capacities of mankind--as the popular assembly +gave way to the representative assembly--and only on the failure to make +the adjustment does it get rusty and out of order. It has to meet the +requirements of vast empires and mighty confederations of states, and to +fulfil the wants of small republics and parish councils. + +What but democracy can answer to the call for political liberty that sounds +from so many lands and in so many varying tongues? Did any other form of +government devised by the wit of man make such universal appeal? + +And when all is said and done--what does this democracy, this government by +popular representatives, mean, but government by the consent of the +governed--the only form of government tolerable to civilised mankind in the +twentieth century? + +Given a fairly good standard of common honesty in the ordinary dealings of +life, and the honesty of our public life, whether in Parliament or in the +Civil Service, in executive or administration, will serve. If the private +and commercial life is corroded with dishonesty, then democracy will be +bitten by knaves and rascals. For our chosen rulers have a way of +faithfully reflecting the morality of their electors, and are not free to +indulge their fancies, as kings of old were. + +Politics are not, and never will be, or ought to be, the chief interest and +concern of the mass of people in a healthy community where slavery is +extinct. And democracy makes no demand that would involve such interest and +concern. The choice of honest representatives, persons of goodwill, and +reasonable intelligence, is no tremendous task in a community where +honesty, goodwill, and intelligence prevail. And if these things do not +prevail, if honesty is contemned in business, and goodwill between man and +man despised, and intelligence frowned upon, then it is of small importance +what the government of such a nation is, for that nation is doomed, and it +is well for the world that it should be doomed. + +But, on the whole, it seems indisputable that the common people of the +great nations do cleave to honesty and goodwill, and that the desire for +intelligence is being widely fostered. As long, then, as we can count on +honesty, goodwill, and intelligence in our streets and market-places, as we +can to-day, mankind does well to elect its representatives to council and +Parliament and proclaim democracy--"Government of the people, by the +people, for the people"--as the proper government for mankind. + + * * * * * + + +Notes. + +[1] We cannot be sure about the constitution of the Witenagemot. The +evidence is conflicting, and, at best, we can only offer a statement of +opinion. + +[2] "The parish was the community of the township organised for Church +purposes and subject to Church discipline, with a constitution which +recognised the rights of the whole body as an aggregate, and the right of +every adult member, _whether man or woman_, to a voice in self-government, +but at the same time kept the self-governing community under a system of +inspection and restraint by a central authority outside the parish +boundaries."--Bishop Hobhouse, _Somerset Record Society_, Vol. IV. + +"The community had its own assembly--the parish meeting--which was a +deliberative assembly. It had its own officers, who might be either men or +women, duly elected, sometimes for a year, sometimes for life, but in all +cases subject to being dismissed for flagrant offences. The larger number +of these officials had well-defined duties to discharge, and were paid for +their services out of funds provided by the parishioners."--DR. JESSOPP, +_Before the Great Pillage_. + +[3] Radmer, _Life of Anselm_. (Rolls Series.) + +[4] "The boldness of Anselm's attitude not only broke the tradition of +ecclesiastical servitude, but infused through the nation at large a new +spirit of independence."--J.R. GREEN, _History of the English People_. + +[5] "For as long as any one in all the land was said to hold any power +except through him, even in the things of God, it seemed to him that the +royal dignity was diminished."--EADMER, _Life of Anselm_. + +[6] See Palgrave's _History of Normandy and England_. + +[7] "A martyr he clearly was, not merely to the privileges of the Church or +to the rights of the See of Canterbury, but to the general cause of law and +order as opposed to violence."--FREEMAN, _Historical Essays_. + +[8] _See_ Campbell's _Lives of the Chancellors_. + +[9] F. York Powell, _England to 1509_. + +"Ecclesiastical privileges were not so exclusively priestly privileges as +we sometimes fancy. They sheltered not only ordained ministers, but all +ecclesiastical officers of every kind; the Church courts also claimed +jurisdiction in the causes of widows and orphans. In short, the privileges +for which Thomas contended transferred a large part of the people, and that +the most helpless part, from the bloody grasp of the King's courts to the +milder jurisdiction of the bishop."--FREEMAN, _Historical Essays_. + +[10] Walter of Coventry. (Rolls Series.) + +[11] Roger of Wendover. (Rolls Series.) + +[12] "Clause by clause the rights of the commons are provided for as well +as the rights of the nobles; the interest of the freeholder is everywhere +coupled with that of the barons and knights; the stock of the merchant and +the wainage of the villein are preserved from undue severity of amercement +as well as the settled estate of the earldom or barony. The knight is +protected against the compulsory exaction of his services, and the horse +and cart of the freeman against the irregular requisition even of the +sheriff."--STUBBS, _Constitutional History_. + +[13] "Quod Anglicana Ecclesia libera sit."--_Magna Charta_, I. + +[14] "This most important provision may be regarded as a summing-up of the +history of Parliament so far as it can be said yet to exist. It probably +contains nothing which had not been for a long time in theory a part of the +Constitution: the kings had long consulted their council on taxation; that +council consisted of the elements that are here specified. But the right +had never yet been stated in so clear a form, and the statement thus made +seems to have startled even the barons.... It was for the attainment of +this right that the struggles of the reign of Henry III. were carried on; +and the realisation of the claim was deferred until the reign of his +successor. In these clauses the nation had now obtained a comparatively +clear definition of the right on which their future political power was to +be based."--STUBBS, _Constitutional History_. + +[15] "Ut quod omnes similiter tangit ab omnibus approbetur." + +[16] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_. + +[17] Stubbs, _Ibid_. + +[18] "Analogous examples may be taken from the practice of the +ecclesiastical assemblies, in which the representative theory is introduced +shortly before it finds its way into parliament."--STUBBS, _Constitutional +History_. + +[19] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_. + +[20] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_. + +[21] F. York Powell, _England to 1509_. + +[22] Sir Courtenay Ilbert, _Parliament_. + +[23] Ilbert, _Parliament_. + +[24] Bagehot, _The English Constitution_. + +[25] Bagehot, _Ibid_. + +[26] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_. + +[27] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_. + +[28] Andrew Marvell, the poet, who sat for Hull in the reign of Charles +II., was paid by the mayor and aldermen of the borough. In return Marvell +wrote letters describing passing events in London. There are stray cases of +the payment of members in the early years of the eighteenth century. Four +shillings a day, including the journey to and from London, for the knight +of the shire, and two shillings a day for the borough member were the wages +fixed by law in 1323. + +[29] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_. + +[30] Bagehot, _The English Constitution_. + +[31] _See_ Stopes' _British Freewomen_ for a full examination of this +matter. + +[32] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_. + +[33] For the last fifty years the political influence of London has been +less than that of the manufacturing districts. + +[34] "The project was clearly to set up a new order of things founded on +social equality--a theory which in the whole history of the Middle Ages +appears for the first time in connection with this movement."--DR. +GAIRDNER, _Introduction to Paston Letters_. + +[35] Four centuries later and this doctrine of all men having been born +free at the beginning was to be preached again in popular fashion by +Rousseau and find expression in American Independence and the French +Revolution. + +[36] Froissart seems to be chiefly responsible for the notion, found in the +writings of later historians, that this John Tyler was the leader of the +revolt, and for the confusion that mistakenly identifies him with Wat +Tyler, of Maidstone, the real leader. Three other Tylers are mentioned in +the records of the Peasant Revolt--Walter, of Essex, and two of the City of +London. + +[37] Hallam, _Middle Ages_. + +[38] This law of Winchester was the statute of Edward I., 1285, which +authorised local authorities to appoint constables and preserve the peace. +According to a statement made by Jack Straw, Tyler and his lieutenants +intended, amongst other things, to get rid of the King's Council, and make +each county a self-governing commune. + +[39] There are some grounds for believing that a plot had been made to slay +Wat Tyler at Smithfield. _See_ Dr. G. Kriehn _American Review_, 1902. + +[40] F. York Powell, _England to 1509_. + +[41] Durrant Cooper, _John Cade's Followers in Kent_. + +[42] "These lords found him sober in talk, wise in reasoning, arrogant in +heart, and stiff in opinions; one who by no means would dissolve his army, +except the King in person would come to him, and assent to the things he +would require."--HOLINSHED. + +[43] Stow. + +[44] "Whereof he (Cade) lost the people's favour and hearts. For it was to +be thought if he had not executed that robbery he might have gone far and +brought his purpose to good effect."--FABYAN'S _Chronicle_. + +"And for this the hearts of the citizens fell from him, and every thrifty +man was afraid to be served in likewise, for there was many a man in London +that awaited and would fain have seen a common robbery."--STOW. + +[45] "During the period, which may be roughly defined as from 1450 to 1550, +enclosure meant to a large extent the actual dispossession of the tenants +by their manorial lords. This took place either in the form of the violent +ousting of the sitting tenant, or of a refusal on the death of one tenant +to admit the son, who in earlier centuries would have been treated as his +natural successor. Proofs abound."--W.J. ASHLEY, _Economic History_. + +[46] _See_ Dr. Jessop, _The Great Pillage_. + +[47] "That a populous and wealthy city like Norwich should have been for +three weeks in the hands of 20,000 rebels, and should have escaped utter +pillage and ruin, speaks highly for the rebel leaders."--W. RYE, _Victoria +County History of Norfolk_. + +"Robert Ket was not a mere craftsman: he was a man of substance, the owner +of several manors; his conduct throughout was marked by considerable +generosity; nor can the name of patriot be denied to him who deserted the +class to which he might have belonged or aspired, and cast in his lot with +the suffering people."--CANON DIXON, _History of the Church of England_. + +[48] "There was something in the temper of these celebrated men which +secured them against the proverbial inconstancy both of the Court and of +individuals.... No Parliament attacked their influence. No mob coupled +their names with any odious grievance.... They were, one and all, +Protestants. But ... none of them chose to run the smallest personal risk +during the reign of Mary. No men observed more accurately the signs of the +times.... Their fidelity to the State was incorruptible. No intrigue, no +combination of rivals could deprive them of the confidence of their +Sovereign."--MACAULAY, _Burleigh, his Times._ + +[49] "The Tudor monarchs exercised freely their power of creating boroughs +by charter. They used their Parliaments, and had to find means of +controlling them. In the creation of 'pocket' or 'rotten' boroughs, Queen +Elizabeth was probably the worst offender. She had much influence in her +Duchy of Cornwall, and many of the Cornish boroughs which obtained such a +scandalous reputation in later times were created by her for the return of +those whom the lords of her council would consider 'safe' men."--ILBERT, +_Parliament._ + +[50] Elizabeth's popularity steadily diminished in her last years. The +death of Essex, ecclesiastical persecutions, increased taxation, and the +irritations caused by royal expenditure were all responsible for the +discontent. James I. failed from the first to secure the goodwill of the +people. + +[51] Oxford men all three. Sir John Eliot was at Exeter College, 1607; John +Hampden at Magdalen, 1609; and John Pym at Broadgate Hall (later called +Pembroke), 1599. + +[52] Clarendon, _History of the Great Rebellion_. + +[53] "The same men who, six months before, were observed to be of very +moderate tempers, and to wish that gentle remedies might be applied, talked +now in another dialect both of Kings and persons; and said that they must +now be of another temper than they were the last Parliament."--CLARENDON, +_ibid._ + +[54] Macaulay, _Hallam's Constitutional History_. + +[55] "The great rule of Cromwell was a series of failures to +reconcile the authority of the 'single person' with the authority of +Parliament."--ILBERT, _Parliament_. + +[56] "A very large number of persons regarded the struggle with +indifference.... In one case, the inhabitants of an entire county pledged +themselves to remain neutral. Many quietly changed with the times (as +people changed with the varying fortunes of York and Lancaster). That this +sentiment of neutrality was common to the greater mass of the working +classes is obvious from the simultaneous appearance of the club men in +different parts of the country with their motto: 'If you take our cattle, +we will give you battle.'"--G.P. GOOCH, _History of Democratic Ideas in the +Seventeenth Century_. + +[57] See _Memorial of English Affairs_. + +[58] "By its injudicious treatment of the most popular man in England, +Parliament was arraying against itself a force which only awaited an +opportunity to sweep it away."--G.P. GOOCH, _History of Democratic Ideas in +the Seventeenth Century_. + +[59] "So die the Leveller corporals. Strong they, after their sort, for the +liberties of England; resolute to the very death."--CARLYLE. + +[60] "Then ensued a scene, the like of which had in all probability never +been witnessed in an English court of justice, and was never again to be +witnessed till the seven bishops were freed by the verdict of a jury from +the rage of James II."--S.R. GARDINER, _History of the Commonwealth_. + +[61] Professor C.H. Firth, Lilburne in _Dict. Nat. Biography_. + +[62] Winstanley's _New Law of Righteousness_, 1649. + +[63] Palgrave. Introduction to Erskine May, _Parliamentary Practice_. + +[64] Sir John Eliot, 1629. + +[65] Edward II., in 1327, and Richard II., in 1399, had not been deposed +without the consent of Parliament. + +[66] "The monarchical regime which was revived under Charles II. broke down +under James II. It was left for the 'glorious Revolution' of 1688, and for +the Hanoverian dynasty, to develop the ingenious system of adjustments and +compromises which is now known, sometimes as cabinet government, sometimes +as parliamentary government."--ILBERT, _Parliament_. + +[67] G.P. Gooch, _Annals of Politics and Culture_. + +[68] Palmerston's influence in the House of Commons was about as bad in the +nineteenth century.--_See_ BAGEHOT, _The English Constitution_. + +[69] "Here and there we find an eminent man, whose public services were so +notorious that it was impossible to avoid rewarding them; but putting aside +those who were in a manner forced upon the Sovereign, it would be idle to +deny that the remainder and, of course, the overwhelming majority, were +marked by a narrowness and illiberality of sentiment, which, more than +anything else, brought the whole order into contempt. No great thinkers, no +great writers, no great orators, no great statesman, none of the true +nobility of the land, were to be found among those spurious nobles created +by George III. Nor were the material interests of the country better +represented. Among the most important men in England those engaged in +banking and commerce held a high place; since the end of the seventeenth +century their influence had rapidly increased.... But in the reign of +George III. claims of this sort were little heeded."--BUCKLE, _History of +Civilisation_. + +[70] "They, the friars, and especially the Franciscans, largely influenced +politics. The conception of individual freedom, upon which the life of St. +Francis was built, went far to instil the idea of civic freedom into men's +minds.... It was the ideas of the friars that found expression in the +Baron's War." The Song of the Battle of Lewes "set forth unmistakably the +conception of the official position of the King, and affirmed the right of +his subjects to remove evil counsellors from his neighbourhood, and to +remind him of his duty--ideas due to the political influence of the +Franciscans."--CREIGHTON, _Historical Lectures and Addresses_. + +[71] The late Lord Acton pointed out that St. Thomas Aquinas was really the +first Whig. + +[72] See Introduction to Rousseau's _Social Contract_, by H. J. Tozer. + +[73] "That which distinguishes the French Revolution from other political +movements is that it was directed by men who had adopted certain +speculative a priori conceptions with the fanaticism and proselytising +fervour of a religious belief, and the Bible of their Creed was the +_Contrat Social_ of Rousseau."--LECKY, _England in Eighteenth Century_, +Vol. V. + +"The original contract seized on as a watchword by Rousseau's enthusiasm +grew from an arid fiction into a great and dangerous deceit of +nations."--Sir F. POLLOCK, _History of the Science of Politics_. + +[74] Mr. H.J. Tozer. Introduction to Rousseau's _Social Contract_. + +[75] See Conway's _Life of Paine_, Vol. I. + +[76] Professor T.F. Tout, _England from 1689_. + +[77] Tout, _ibid._ + +[78] Tout, _ibid._ + +[79] R.G. Gammage, _History of the Chartist Movement_. + +[80] "The condition of the labouring classes was the least satisfactory +feature of English life in 1846. Politically they were dumb, for they had +no parliamentary votes. Socially they were depressed, though their lot had +been considerably improved by an increased demand for labour and by the +removal of taxes in Peel's great Budget of 1842. That was the year in which +the misery of the English proletariat reached its lowest depth."--HERBERT +PAUL, _History of Modern England_. + +[81] Justin McCarthy, _Short History of Our Own Times_. + +[82] McCarthy, _Ibid_. + +[83] Tout, _England since 1689_. + +[84] "For a general extension of the franchise, an extension from the +occupation franchise to the adult franchise, there does not appear to be +any demand, except in connection with the burning question of the franchise +for women."--ILBERT, _Parliament_. + +[85] "On the mere numerical basis Ireland is much over-represented, but +Ireland claims to be treated as a separate entity, and her claims cannot be +disregarded."--ILBERT, _Parliament_. + +[86] Rt. Hon. A.J. Balfour, M.P., House of Commons, 1910. + +[87] "With great tact, and without very much friction, he brought the +monarchy into touch with the state of things brought about by the Reform +Bill. He did for the Crown what Wellington did for the House of Lords. Just +as the Duke saw that the Lords must give up setting themselves against the +national will strongly expressed, so did the Prince see that the Crown +could no longer exercise those _legal_ rights for which George III. had +fought so manfully. Like the Lords, the Crown now became a checking and +regulating, rather than a moving, force. It remained as the pledge and +symbol of the unity and continuity of the national life, and could do good +work in tempering the evils of absolute party government. Such of the royal +_prerogatives_ as were not dead must be carried out by ministers. The royal +_influence_ continued to run through every branch of the State."--Professor +T.F. TOUT, _England from 1689._ + +[88] Mr. J.M. Robertson, M.P., _Charles Bradlaugh--A Record of His Life and +Work_. + +[89] F. York Powell, _Thoughts on Democracy_. + +[90] Unfortunately the present House of Commons has just decided, August, +1911, to pay its members a salary of £400 a year from the national revenue. +It is to be regretted that the cost has not been laid directly on the +electors, and that the time is not more appropriate. With the country torn +with strikes of workmen seeking a few extra shillings a week, it was hardly +the opportune moment for a House of Commons to vote itself some £250,000 a +year. The proposal would have been more palatable to the nation if the +Commons had decided that payment should begin with the _next_ Parliament. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RISE OF THE DEMOCRACY*** + + +******* This file should be named 19609-8.txt or 19609-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/6/0/19609 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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+ border: solid black; + height: 5px; } + // --> + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Rise of the Democracy, by Joseph Clayton</h1> +<pre class="pg"> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The Rise of the Democracy</p> +<p>Author: Joseph Clayton</p> +<p>Release Date: October 23, 2006 [eBook #19609]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RISE OF THE DEMOCRACY***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Afra Ullah, Keith Edkins,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net/)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="pg" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h1>THE RISE OF THE DEMOCRACY</h1> + +<p class="center" style="margin-top: 2em;">BY</p> + +<h3>JOSEPH CLAYTON</h3> + +<p class="center" style="margin-top: 2em;">Author of "Leaders of the People" +"Bishops as Legislators," etc. etc.</p> + +<h4>WITH EIGHT FULL-PAGE PLATES</h4> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3>CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD.<br /> +London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne<br /> +1911</h3> + +<p class="center" style="margin-top: 2em;">ALL RIGHTS RESERVED</p> + + <p><a name="plateI"></a></p> + + <div class="figcenter" style="width:50%;"> + <a href="images/plateI.jpg"><img width="100%" src="images/plateI.jpg" + alt="King John granting Magna Charta" /></a> + <h4>KING JOHN GRANTING MAGNA CHARTA</h4> + + <h4>From the Fresco in the Royal Exchange, by Ernest Normand.</h4> + + <i>By permission of Messrs. S. Hildesheimer & Co., Ltd.</i> + </div> + <br clear="all" /> +<hr class="full" /> + +<h3>PREFACE</h3> + + <p>This short account of the rise of political democracy is necessarily + but an outline of the matter, and while it is not easy to define the + exact limits, there is no difficulty in noting omissions. For instance, + there is scarcely any reference to the work of poets or pamphleteers. + John Ball's rhyming letters are quoted, but not the poems of Langland, + and the political songs of the Middle Ages are hardly mentioned. The host + of political pamphleteers in the seventeenth century are excluded, with + the exception of Lilburne and Winstanley, whose work deserves better + treatment from posterity than it received from contemporaries. Defoe's + vigorous services for the Whigs are unnoticed, and the democratic note in + much of the poetry of Burns, Blake, Byron and Shelley is left + unconsidered, and the influence of these poets undiscussed. The anti-Corn + Law rhymes of Ebenezer Eliot, and the Chartist songs of Ernest Jones were + notable inspirations in their day, and in our own times Walt Whitman and + Mr. Edward Carpenter have been the chief singers of democracy. But a + whole volume at least might be written on the part the pen has played in + the struggle towards democracy.</p> + + <p>Again, there is no mention of Ireland in this short sketch. A + Nationalist movement is not necessarily a democratic movement, and the + Irish Nationalist Party includes men of very various political opinions, + whose single point of agreement is the demand for Home Rule. In India and + Egypt the agitation is for representative institutions. Ireland might, or + might not, become a democracy under Home Rule—who can say?</p> + + <p>The aim of the present writer has been to trace the travelled road of + the English people towards democracy, and to point out certain landmarks + on that road, in the hope that readers may be turned to examine more + closely for themselves the journey taken. For the long march teems with + adventure and spirited enterprise; and, noting mistakes and failures in + the past, we may surely and wisely, and yet with greater daring and finer + courage, pursue the road, not unmindful of the charge committed to us in + the centuries left behind.</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>J.C.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p><font class="sc">Hampstead</font>,</p> + <p><i>September, 1911.</i></p> + </div> + </div> + <br clear="all" /> +<hr class="full" /> + +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> + +<h4><a href="#intro">INTRODUCTION</a></h4> + + <p>The British Influence—"Government of the People, by the People, + for the People"—The Foundations of Democracy—British + Democracy Experimental not Doctrinaire—Education to Democracy</p> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTERI">CHAPTER I</a></h4> + +<h4><font class="sc">the early struggles against the absolutism of the crown</font></h4> + + <p>The Great Churchmen—Archbishop Anselm and Norman + Autocracy—Thomas à Becket and Henry II.—Stephen Langton and + John—The Great Charter</p> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTERII">CHAPTER II</a></h4> + +<h4><font class="sc">the beginning of parliamentary representation</font></h4> + + <p>Democracy and Representative Government—Representative Theory + First found in Ecclesiastical Assemblies—The Misrule of Henry + III.—Simon of Montfort, Leader of the National Party—Edward + I.'s Model Parliament, 1295—The Nobility Predominant in + Parliament—The Medieval National Assemblies—The Electors of + the Middle Ages—Payment of Parliamentary Representatives—The + Political Position of Women in the Middle Ages—No Theory of + Democracy in the Middle Ages</p> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTERIII">CHAPTER III</a></h4> + +<h4><font class="sc">popular insurrection in england</font></h4> + + <p>General Results of Popular Risings—William FitzOsbert, + 1196—The Peasant Revolt and its Leaders, 1381—Jack Cade, + Captain of Kent, 1450—The Norfolk Rising under Ket, 1549</p> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTERIV">CHAPTER IV</a></h4> + +<h4><font class="sc">the struggle renewed against the crown</font></h4> + + <p>Parliament under the Tudors—Victory of Parliament over the + Stuarts—The Democratic Protest: Lilburne—Winstanley and "The + Diggers"—The Restoration</p> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTERV">CHAPTER V</a></h4> + +<h4><font class="sc">constitutional government—aristocracy triumphant</font></h4> + + <p>Government by Aristocrats—Civil and Religious + Liberty—Growth of Cabinet Rule—Walpole's rule—The + Change in the House of Lords—"Wilkes and Liberty"</p> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTERVI">CHAPTER VI</a></h4> + +<h4><font class="sc">the rise of the democratic idea</font></h4> + + <p>The Witness of the Middle Ages—The "Social Contract" + Theory—Thomas Hobbes—John Locke—Rousseau and French + Revolution—American Independence—Thomas Paine—Major + Cartwright and the "Radical Reformers"—Thomas + Spence—Practical Politics and Democratic Ideals</p> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTERVII">CHAPTER VII</a></h4> + +<h4><font class="sc">parliamentary reform and the enfranchisement of the people</font></h4> + + <p>The Industrial Revolution—The Need for Parliamentary + Reform—Manufacturing Centres Unrepresented in Parliament—The + Passage of the Great Reform Bill—The Working Class still + Unrepresented—Chartism—The Hyde Park Railings, + 1866—Household Suffrage—Working-class Representation in + Parliament—Removal of Religious Disabilities: Catholics, Jews and + Freethinkers—The Enfranchisement of Women</p> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTERVIII">CHAPTER VIII</a></h4> + +<h4><font class="sc">democracy at work</font></h4> + + <p>Local Government—The Workman in the House of + Commons—Working-class Leaders in Parliament—The Present + Position of the House of Lords—The Popularity of the + Crown—The Democratic Ideals: Socialism and Social Reform—Land + Reform and the Single Tax</p> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTERIX">CHAPTER IX</a></h4> + +<h4><font class="sc">the world-wide movement: its strength and weakness</font></h4> + + <p>East and West—Tyranny under Democratic Forms—The Obvious + Dangers—Party Government—Bureaucracy—Working-Class + Ascendancy—On Behalf of Democracy</p> + +<h3>LIST OF PLATES</h3> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p><a href="#plateI"><font class="sc">King John Granting Magna Charta</font></a></p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p><a href="#plateII"><font class="sc">Magna Charta—a Facsimile of the Original in the British Museum</font></a></p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p><a href="#plateIII"><font class="sc">Sir John Eliot</font></a></p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p><a href="#plateIV"><font class="sc">John Hampden</font></a></p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p><a href="#plateV"><font class="sc">The Gordon Riots</font></a></p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p><a href="#plateVI"><font class="sc">The Right Hon. John Burns, M.P.</font></a></p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p><a href="#plateVII"><font class="sc">The Right Hon. D. Lloyd George, M.P.</font></a></p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p><a href="#plateVIII"><font class="sc">The Passing of the Parliament Bill in the House of Lords</font></a></p> + </div> + </div> + <br clear="all" /> +<hr class="full" /> + + <p><a name="intro"></a></p> + +<h2>THE +RISE OF THE DEMOCRACY</h2> + +<h3>INTRODUCTION</h3> + +<h4><font class="sc">The British Influence</font></h4> + + <p>Our business here is to give some plain account of the movement + towards democracy in England, only touching incidentally on the progress + of that movement in other parts of the world. Mainly through British + influences the movement has become world wide; and the desire for + national self-government, and the adoption of the political instruments + of democracy—popular enfranchisement and the rule of elected + representatives—are still the aspirations of civilised man in East + and West. The knowledge that these forms of democratic government have by + no means at all times and in all places proved successful does not check + the movement. As the British Parliament and the British Constitution have + in the past been accepted as a model in countries seeking free political + institutions, so to-day our Parliament and our Constitutional Government + are still quoted with approval and admiration in those lands where these + institutions are yet to be tried.</p> + + <p>The rise of democracy, then, is a matter in which Britain is largely + concerned; and this in spite of the fact that in England little respect + and less attention has been paid to the expounders of democracy and their + constructive theories of popular government. The notion that philosophers + are the right persons to manage affairs of state and hold the reins of + Government has always been repugnant to the English people, and, with us, + to call a man "a political theorist" is to contemn him. The English have + not moved towards democracy with any conscious desire for that particular + form of government, and no vision of a perfect State or an ideal + commonwealth has sustained them on the march. Our boast has been that we + are a "practical" people, and so our politics are, as they ever have + been, experimental. Reforms have been accomplished not out of deference + to some moral or political principle, but because the abuse to be + remedied had become intolerable. Dissatisfaction with the Government and + the conviction that only by enfranchisement and the free election of + representatives can Parliament remove the grounds of dissatisfaction, + have carried us towards democracy.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Government of the People, by the People, for the People</font></h4> + + <p>We have been brought to accept Abraham Lincoln's famous phrase, + "Government of the people, by the people, for the people," as a + definition of democracy; but in that acceptance there is no harking back + to the early democracies of Greece or Rome, so beloved by the French + democrats of the eighteenth century, who, however, knew very little about + those ancient states—or any vain notion of restoring primitive + Teutonic democracy.</p> + + <p>The sovereign assemblies of Greece—the Ecclesia of Athens, and + the Apella of Sparta—the Comitia Centuriata of Rome, have no more + resemblance to democracy in the twentieth century than the Witenagemot + has to the British Parliament; and the democracy which has arisen in + modern times is neither to be traced for its origin to Greece or Rome, + nor found to be evolved from Anglo-Saxon times. The early democracies of + Athens and Sparta were confined to small states, and were based on a + slave population without civic rights. There was not even a conception + that slaves might or should take part in politics, and the slaves vastly + outnumbered the citizens. Modern democracy does not tolerate slavery, it + will not admit the permanent exclusion of any body of people from + enfranchisement; though it finds it hard to ignore differences of race + and colour, it is always enlarging the borders of citizenship. So that + already in the Australian Commonwealth, in New Zealand, in certain of the + American States, in Norway, and in Finland, we have the complete + enfranchisement of all men and women who are of age to vote.</p> + + <p>Apart from this vital difference between a slave-holding democracy and + a democracy of free citizens—a difference that rent the United + States in civil war, and was only settled in America by democracy ending + slavery—ancient democracy was government by popular assembly, and + modern democracy is government through elected representatives. The + former is only possible in small communities with very limited + responsibilities—a parish meeting can decide questions of no more + than strictly local interest; for our huge empires of to-day nothing + better than representative government has been devised for carrying out + the general will of the majority.</p> + + <p>As for the early English Witenagemot, it was simply an assembly of the + chiefs, and, though crowds sometimes attended, all but the great men were + the merest spectators. Doubtless the folk-moot of the tribe was + democratic, for all free men attended it, and the English were a nation + of freeholders, and the slaves were few—except in the + west—and might become free men.<a name="footnotetag1" + href="#footnote1"><sup>[1]</sup></a> The shire-moot, too, with its + delegates from the hundred-moots, was equally democratic. But with + feudalism and the welding of the nation, tribal democracies passed away, + leaving, however, in many places a valuable tradition of local + self-government.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">The Foundations of Democracy</font></h4> + + <p>A steady and invincible belief that those who maintain the defence of + the country and pay for the cost of government should have a voice in the + great council of the nation, and the conviction that effective utterance + can be found for that voice in duly chosen representatives, are the + foundations on which democracy has built. Democracy itself comes in (1) + when it is seen that all are being taxed for national purposes; and (2) + the opinion finds acceptance that responsibilities of citizenship should + be borne by all who have reached the age of manhood and are of sound + mind.</p> + + <p>To sketch the rise of democracy in England is to trace the steady + resistance to kings who would govern without the advice of counsellors, + and to note the growing determination that these counsellors must be + elected representatives. Only when the absolutism of the Crown is ended + and a Parliament of elected members has become the real centre of + government, is it possible, without a revolution, for democracy to be + established.</p> + + <p>Much of this book is given up, then, to the old stories of kingly rule + checked and slowly superseded by aristocracy. And all the old attempts at + revolution by popular insurrection are again retold, not only because of + the witness they bear to the impossibility in England of achieving + democracy by the violent overthrow of government, but because they also + bear witness to the heroic resolution of the English people to take up + arms and plunge into a sea of troubles rather than bear patiently ills + that were unseemly for men to endure in silence. Popular insurrection + failed, but over and over again violence has been resorted to in the + resistance to tyranny, and has been justified by its victory. If Wat + Tyler, Jack Cade, and Robert Ket are known as beaten revolutionaries, + Stephen Langton, Simon of Montfort, and John Hampden are acclaimed as + patriots for not disdaining the use of armed resistance.</p> + + <p>The conclusion is that a democratic revolution was not to be + accomplished in England by a rising of the people, but that forcible + resistance even to the point of civil war was necessary to guard + liberties already won, or to save the land from gross misgovernment. But + always the forcible resistance, when successful, has been made not by + revolutionaries but by the strong champions of constitutional government. + The fruit of the resistance to John was the Great Charter; of Simon of + Montfort's war against Henry III., the beginning of a representative + Parliament; of the war against Charles, the establishment of + Parliamentary government. Lilburne and his friends hoped that the civil + war and the abolition of monarchy would bring in democracy, though + democracy was never in the mind of men like Hampden, who made the war, + and was utterly uncongenial to Cromwell and the Commonwealth men. But the + sanctity of monarchy received its death-blow from Cromwell, and perished + with the deposing of James II.; and there has been no resurrection. To + the Whig rule we owe the transference of political power from the Crown + to Parliament. Once it is manifest that Parliament is the instrument of + authority, that the Prime Minister and his colleagues rule only by the + permission and with the approval of the House of Commons, and that the + House of Commons itself is chosen by a certain number of electors to + represent the nation, then it is plain that the real sovereignty is in + the electors who choose the House of Commons. As long as the electors are + few and consist of the great landowners and their satellites, then the + constitutional government is aristocracy, and democracy is still to + come.</p> + + <p>And just as discontent with monarchy, and its obvious failure as a + satisfactory form of government, brought in aristocracy, so at the + beginning of the nineteenth century discontent with aristocracy was rife, + and a new industrial middle-class looked for "Parliamentary reform," to + improve the condition of England.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">British Democracy Experimental, not Doctrinaire</font></h4> + + <p>Resistance to royal absolutism, culminating in the acknowledged + ascendancy of Parliament and the triumphant aristocracy of 1688, was + never based on abstract principles of the rights of barons and + landowners, but sprang from the positive, definite conviction that those + who furnished arms and men for the king, or who paid certain moneys in + taxation, were entitled to be heard in the councils of the king; and the + charters given in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries—from Henry + I. to Henry III.—confirmed this conviction. The resistance to the + Stuarts was still based on the conviction that direct taxation conferred + political privileges, but now the claim to speak in the great council of + the realm had become a request to be listened to by the king, and passed + rapidly from that to a resolution that the king should have no money from + Parliament if he refused to listen. The practical inconvenience of a king + altogether at variance with Parliament was held to be sufficient + justification for getting rid of James II., and for hobbling all future + kings with the Bill of Rights.</p> + + <p>The dethronement of aristocracy in favour of democracy has proceeded + on very similar lines. The mass of English people were far too wretched + and far too ignorant at the end of the eighteenth century to care + anything about abstract "rights of man," and only political philosophers + and a few artisans hoped for improvement in their condition by + Parliamentary reform. Agricultural England accepted the rule of + landowners as an arrangement by providence. It was the industrial + revolution that shattered the feudal notions of society, and created a + manufacturing population which knew nothing of lowly submission to + pastors and masters. A middle-class emerged from the very ranks of the + working people. The factory system brought fortunes to men who a few + years earlier had been artisans, and to these new capitalists in the + nineteenth century the aristocracy in power was as irksome as the Stuarts + had been to the Whigs. If, as the Whigs taught, those who paid the taxes + were entitled to a voice in the government, then the manufacturing + districts ought to send representatives to Parliament. It seemed + monstrous that places like Manchester, Leeds, and Birmingham had no one + in the House of Commons to plead for the needs of their inhabitants. The + manufacturer wanted Parliamentary representation because he hoped through + Parliament to secure the abolition of the political disabilities of + Nonconformists, and to get financial changes made that would make the + conditions of trade more profitable. And he felt that it would be better + for the country if he and the class he represented could speak freely in + Parliament.</p> + + <p>The workman wanted the vote because he had been brought to believe + that, possessing the vote, he could make Parliament enact laws that would + lighten the hardships of his life. The whole of the manufacturing + class—capitalist and workman alike—could see by 1820 that the + House of Commons was the instrument of the electorate, and that to get + power they must become electors. (Yet probably not one per cent. of them + could express clearly any theory of popular sovereignty.) The old Whig + families, kept out of office by the Tories whom George III. had placed in + power, and who now controlled the House of Commons, supported reform and + the enfranchisement of the middle class because they saw no way of + getting back into power except by a new electorate and a redistribution + of Parliamentary seats. At the beginning of the twentieth century the + landowner, still Whig, though now, as a general rule enrolled with the + Unionist Party, has not been excluded from political power, but the + representatives of the middle-class and of the working people are + predominant in the House of Commons. The claim of the House of Lords to + reject the bills of the Commons has been, in our time, subjected to the + criticism formerly extended to the royal prerogative, and an + Act—the Parliament Act—has now been passed which formally + requires the Lords to accept, without serious amendment, every Bill sent + up from the Commons in three successive sessions.</p> + + <p>The transition from monarchy to aristocracy in England was brought + about at the price of civil war. In many countries democracy has been + born in revolution, and the birth pains have been hard and bitter. But in + England in the nineteenth century democracy was allowed to come into + being by permission of the aristocracy, and has not yet reached its full + stature. It is true that violence, bloodshed, loss of life, and + destruction of property marked the passage of the great Reform Bill; that + more than once riots and defiance of law and order have been the + expression of industrial discontent; but on the whole the average + Englishman is content to wait for the redress of wrongs by Parliamentary + action. Women have quite recently defied the law, refused to pay taxes, + and made use of "militant methods" in their agitation for + enfranchisement. But the women's plea has been that, as they are + voteless, these methods have been necessary to call attention to their + demands. Democratic advance has often been hindered and delayed by + government, and by a national disinclination from rapid political change; + but as the character of government has changed with the changed character + of the electorate and the House of Commons, so resistance to democracy + has always been abandoned when the advance was widely supported, and + further delay seemed dangerous to the public order.</p> + + <p>The House of Lords is thus seen to yield to the popular + representatives in the House of Commons, and the government, dependent on + the House of Commons, to listen to the demand of women for + enfranchisement.</p> + + <p>While the House of Commons completes its assertion of political + supremacy, and insists on the absolute responsibility of the chosen + representatives of the electorate, the agitation for the enfranchisement + of women is the reminder that democracy has yet to widen its borders. + Progress to democracy in the last one hundred years is visible not only + in the enlarged number of enfranchised citizens, but in the general + admission that every extension of the franchise has been to the public + good; not only in the fact that men of all classes and trades now have + their representatives in Parliament, but in the very wide acknowledgment + that women without votes cannot get that attention by members of the + House of Commons that is given to male electors. That the majority of + electors have expressed a decided opinion that the power of the House of + Lords should be curtailed, as the power of the monarchy has been + curtailed, and that the decisions of the House of Commons are only to be + corrected by the House of Commons, is evidence that under our obviously + imperfect Parliamentary system the will of the electors does get + registered on the Statute Book.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Education to Democracy</font></h4> + + <p>Apart from the direct political education to democracy, it is well to + note the other agencies that have been at work, preparing men and women + for the responsible task of national self-government.</p> + + <p>In the Middle Ages the religious guilds and the trade guilds, managed + by their own members, gave men and women a training in democratic + government. The parish, too, was a commune, and its affairs and finances + were administered by duly elected officers.<a name="footnotetag2" + href="#footnote2"><sup>[2]</sup></a></p> + + <p>But the guilds, with their numerous almshouses and hospitals, were all + suppressed early in Edward VI.'s reign, and their funds confiscated. As + for the parish, it was shorn of all its property, save the parish church, + in the same reign, and its old self-governing life dwindled away to the + election of churchwardens.</p> + + <p>It was not till the beginning of the nineteenth century that the + working classes, by the formation of trade unions, once more took up the + task of education in self-government. From that time onward, through + trade unions, co-operative societies, and friendly societies, with their + annual conferences and congresses, a steady training in democracy has + been achieved; and our Labour Party of to-day, with its Members of + Parliament, its members of county and district councils, and its Justices + of the Peace, would hardly have been possible but for this training. + Other agencies may be mentioned. The temperance movement, the + organisation of working-men's clubs, and the local preaching of the + Nonconformist Churches—particularly the Primitive Methodist + denomination—have all helped to educate workmen in the conduct of + affairs, and to create that sense of personal responsibility which is the + only guarantee of an honest democracy.</p> + + <br clear="all" /> +<hr class="full" /> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTERI">CHAPTER I</a></h3> + +<h3>THE EARLY STRUGGLES AGAINST THE ABSOLUTISM +OF THE CROWN</h3> + +<h4><font class="sc">The Great Churchmen</font></h4> + + <p>We are far from any thoughts of democracy in the early struggles + against the absolutism of the Crown. The old love of personal liberty + that is said to have characterised the Anglo-Saxon had no political + outlet under Norman feudalism. What we note is that three Archbishops of + Canterbury were strong enough and brave enough to stand up against the + unchecked rule of kings, and the names of these great + Archbishops—Anselm, Thomas à Becket, and Stephen Langton—are + to be honoured for all time for the services they rendered in the making + of English liberties. Not one of the three was in any sense a democrat. + It is not till the latter part of the fourteenth century that we find + John Ball, a wandering, revolutionary priest, uttering for the first time + in England a democratic doctrine. Anselm, Becket, and Langton did their + work, as Simon of Montfort, and as Eliot and Hampden worked later, not + for the sake of a democracy, but for the restriction of an intolerable + autocracy. All along in English history liberties have been gained and + enlarged by this process of restriction, and it was only when the powers + of the Crown had been made subject to Parliament that it was possible, at + the close of the nineteenth century, for Parliament itself to become + converted from an assembly of aristocrats to a governing body that really + represented the nation.</p> + + <p>But in considering the rise of democracy we can no more omit the early + struggles against the absolutism of the Crown than we can pass over Simon + of Montfort's Parliament, or the unsuccessful popular revolts, or the war + with Charles I., or the Whig revolution of 1688. They are all incidents + of pre-democratic days, but they are all events of significance. + Democracy is no new order of society, conceived in the fertile mind of + man; it has been slowly evolved and brought to birth after centuries of + struggle, to be tried as a form of government only when other forms are + outgrown, and cease to be acceptable.</p> + + <p>All the great men—heroic and faulty—who withstood the + tyranny of their day, not only wrested charters from kings, they left a + tradition of resistance; and this tradition has been of incalculable + service to a nation seeking self-government. It is easy to dismiss the + work of Anselm and Becket as mere disputes between monarch and Churchman, + to treat lightly the battle for the Great Charter as a strife between + king and barons. Just as easy is it to regard the Peasant Revolt of the + fourteenth century and Jack Cade's rebellion in the fifteenth century as + the tumults of a riotous mob. The great point is to see clearly in all + these contests, successful and unsuccessful, the movement for liberty, + for greater security and expansion of life in England, and to note that + only by a stern endurance and a willingness not to bear an irksome + oppression have our liberties been won. In the winning of these liberties + we have proved our fitness for democracy, for a government that will + allow the fullest measure of self-development.</p> + + <p>Now, what was it that Anselm contended for, first with William II. and + then with Henry I.?</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Archbishop Anselm and Norman Autocracy</font></h4> + + <p>Anselm was sixty when, in 1093, William II. named him for the + Archbishopric of Canterbury. In vain Anselm, who was Abbot of the famous + monastery of Bec, in Normandy, protested that he was too old, and that + his business was not with high place and power in this world. The King + seemed to be dying, and the bishops gathered round the sick bed would not + hear of any refusal on Anselm's part. They pushed the pastoral staff into + his hands, and carried him off to a neighbouring church, while the people + shouted "Long live the bishop!"</p> + + <p>What everybody felt was that with Anselm as Archbishop things might be + better in England, for Anselm's reputation stood very high. He had been + the friend of Lanfranc, the late Archbishop; he had been an honoured + guest at the Court of William the Conqueror; and he was known for his + deep learning, his sanctity of life, and simple, disinterested devotion + to duty. It was hoped that with a man of such holiness at Canterbury some + restraint might be placed on the lawless tyranny of the Red King. + Lanfranc had been the trusted counsellor and right hand of the Red King's + father: why should not Anselm bring back the son to the paths of + decency—at least? The Archbishop of Canterbury was the chief man in + the realm next to the king, and for three years since Lanfranc's death + the see had been kept vacant that William Rufus might enjoy its revenues + for his own pleasure. It was not unreasonable that men should look to the + appointment of Anselm as the beginning of an amendment in Church and + State. The trouble was that William stuck to his evil courses.</p> + + <p>The rule of William the Conqueror had been stern and harsh, and his + hand had been heavy on the English people. But there had been law and + justice in the rule; religion and morality had been respected, and peace + and security obtained.</p> + + <p>The rule of the Red King was not only grievous, it was arbitrary, + capricious, cruel, and without semblance of law. The austerity of the + Conqueror had been conspicuous; equally conspicuous was the debauchery of + his son. The Conqueror had been faithful and conscientious in seeing that + vacancies in the Church were filled up quickly and wisely. The Red King + preferred to leave bishoprics and churches empty so that he might annex + the profits. Lanfranc, a wise and just man, had been the Minister of the + Conqueror; the Red King made Ranulf (nicknamed the Torch or + Firebrand)—a clever, unprincipled clerk—Bishop of Durham and + Justiciar. It was Ranulf who did the King's business in keeping churches + and bishoprics vacant, in violation of law and custom; it was Ranulf who + plundered the King's vassals and the people at large by every kind of + extortion, thwarted the protests of Anselm, and encouraged William in his + savage profligacies.</p> + + <p>Meek and gentle as Anselm was, he had all the courage that comes of a + lofty sense of responsibility to God, and he stood before kings as the + Hebrew prophets of old had stood, calm and fearless. At Christmas, 1092, + three months before his nomination to the See of Canterbury, Anselm was + in England over the affairs of his monastery, and William invited him to + Court and treated him with great display of honour. Then some private + talk took place between the two, and Anselm said plainly that "Things + were spoken daily of the King, openly or secretly, by nearly all the men + of his realm, which were not seemly for the King's dignity." From that + time Anselm stayed in England, for William refused to give him leave to + return to Normandy.</p> + + <p>Then in March, 1093 came the King's sickness, which most men expected + to be mortal. Anselm was summoned, and on his arrival bade the King "make + a clean confession of all that he knows that he has done against God, and + promise that, should he recover, he will without pretence amend in all + things. The King at once agreed to this, and with sorrow of heart engaged + to do all that Anselm required and to keep justice and mercy all his life + long. To this he pledged his faith, and made his bishops witness between + himself and God, sending persons in his stead to promise his word to God + on the altar. An edict was written and sealed with the King's seal that + all prisoners should be set free in all his dominions, all debts + forgiven, all offences heretofore committed pardoned and forgotten for + ever. Further, good and holy laws were promised to the whole people, and + the sacred upholding of right and such solemn inquest into wrongdoing as + may deter others."<a name="footnotetag3" + href="#footnote3"><sup>[3]</sup></a></p> + + <p>William did not die, and his repentance was short-lived; but the one + act of grace he did before leaving his sick bed was to fill up the empty + throne at Canterbury by the appointment of Anselm—Anselm's protests + of unfitness notwithstanding. Then, on the King's recovery, as though to + make up for the penitence displayed, all the royal promises of amendment + were broken without shame, and "all the evil which the King had wrought + before he was sick seemed good by the side of the wrong which he did when + he was returned to health." The prisoners who had been pardoned were sent + back to prison, the debts which had been cancelled were re-claimed, and + all legal actions which had been dropped were resumed. Anselm was now + enthroned at Canterbury, and his appointment could not be revoked; but + the King was quick to show his displeasure at the new Archbishop.</p> + + <p>The first point raised by William was that those lands belonging to + the See of Canterbury, which had been made over to military vassals of + the Crown while the archbishopric was vacant, should remain with their + holders. Anselm said at once that this was impossible. He was responsible + for the administration of all the estates of Canterbury, and to allow + these lands to be alienated to the Crown was to rob the poor and needy + who, it was held, had a just claim on the property of the Church. + Besides, Anselm saw that the lands would never be restored once an + Archbishop confirmed their appropriation by the King's military tenants. + There was no one in all England save Anselm who dared withstand the + Crown, and had he yielded on this matter resistance to the tyranny of the + Red King would only have been harder on the next occasion.</p> + + <p>Then came the question of a present of money to the King, the + customary offering. Anselm brought five hundred marks (£333), a very + considerable sum in those days, and William, persuaded by some of his + courtiers that twice the amount ought to have been given, curtly declined + the present. Anselm, who disliked the whole business of these gifts to + the Crown, for he knew that many a Churchman bought his office by + promising a "free" gift after institution, solemnly warned William that + money given freely as his was given was better than a forced tribute, and + to this William answered that he wanted neither the Archbishop's money + nor his preaching or company.</p> + + <p>Thereupon Anselm retired and gave the money to the poor, determined + that he, for his part, would make no attempt to purchase William's + goodwill. Henceforth William was equally determined that Anselm should + have no peace in England. It was hateful to the King that there should be + anyone in the realm who acknowledged a higher authority than the Crown, + and Anselm made it too plain that the Archbishop rested his authority not + on the favour of the Crown, but on the discipline of the Christian + religion. William was King of England indisputably, but there was a + higher power than the King, and that was the Pope. William himself never + dreamed of denying the divine authority of the Pope in spiritual matters; + no one in all Christendom in the eleventh and twelfth centuries + questioned that at Rome was a court of appeal higher than the courts of + kings. Strong rulers like William the Conqueror might decline to submit + to Rome on a personal question of marriage, but Rome was the recognised + centre of religion, the headquarters of the Christian Church, and the + supreme court of appeal. Apart from Rome there was no power that could + curb the fierce unbridled tyranny of the kings of the earth, and the + power of Rome was a spiritual weapon, for the Pope had no army to enforce + his decisions. So Anselm, conscious of this spiritual authority, refused + to bow to the lawless rule of the Red King; and his very attitude, while + it encouraged men to lift up their hearts who erstwhile had felt that it + was hopeless and useless to strive against William,<a name="footnotetag4" + href="#footnote4"><sup>[4]</sup></a> enraged the Red King to fury.</p> + + <p>The things he wanted to forget were that the chief representative of + the Christian religion was a greater person than the King of England, and + that the Archbishop of Canterbury could be a Christian minister rather + than a King's man.<a name="footnotetag5" + href="#footnote5"><sup>[5]</sup></a> And Anselm was the constant witness + to the Christian religion, and, by his very presence, a rebuke to the + crimes and cruelties of the Court of the Red King. William actually wrote + to the Pope, naturally without any success, praying him to depose Anselm, + and promising a large annual tribute to Rome if the request was + granted.</p> + + <p>For years the uneven contest was waged. The bishops generally avoided + Anselm, and were only anxious to be accepted by the King as good servants + of the Crown, with the result that William despised them for their + servility. But the barons began to declare their respect for the brave + old man at Canterbury.</p> + + <p>At last, when Anselm was summoned to appear before the King's Court, + to "do the King right," on a trumped-up charge of having failed to send + an adequate supply of troops for the King's service, he felt the position + was hopeless. Anselm's longing had been to labour with the King, as + Lanfranc had laboured, to promote religion in the country, and he had + been frustrated at every turn. The summons to the King's Court was the + last straw, for the defendant in this Court was entirely at the mercy of + the Crown. "When, in Anglo-Norman times you speak of the King's Court, it + is only a phrase for the King's despotism."<a name="footnotetag6" + href="#footnote6"><sup>[6]</sup></a> Anselm took no notice of the King's + summons, and decided to appeal to Rome. For a time William refused + permission for any departure from England, but he yielded in 1097, and + Anselm set out for Rome.</p> + + <p>He stayed at Rome and at Lyons till William was dead, for the Pope + would not let him resign Canterbury, and could do nothing to bring the + King to a better mind. Then, on the urgent request of Henry I., he + returned to England, and for a time all went well. Henry was in earnest + for the restoration of law and religion in England, and his declaration, + at the very beginning of his reign—the oft-quoted "charter" of + Henry I.—to stop the old scandals of selling and farming out Church + lands, and to put down all unrighteousness that had been in his brother's + time, was hailed with rejoicing.</p> + + <p>Anselm stood loyally by Henry over the question of his marriage with + Edith (who claimed release from vows taken under compulsion in a convent + at Romsey), and his fidelity at the critical time when Robert of Normandy + and the discontented nobles threatened the safety of the Crown was + invaluable. But Henry was an absolutist, anxious for all the threads of + power to be in his own hands; and just when a great Church Council at the + Lateran had decided that bishops must not be invested by kings with the + ring and staff of their office, because by such investiture they were the + king's vassals, Henry decided to invite Anselm to receive the + archbishopric afresh from the King's hands by a new act of investiture. + To Anselm the abject submission of the bishops to the Red King had been a + painful spectacle; and now Henry was making a demand that would emphasise + the royal supremacy, and the demand was intolerable and impossible. Again + Anselm stood practically alone in his resistance to the royal will, and + again the question in dispute was whether there was any power in England + higher than the Crown. The papal supremacy was no more under discussion + than it had been under William. All that Henry wanted was that the + archbishops and bishops should acknowledge that their authority came from + the Crown; and at Henry's request Anselm, then 70 years old, again + journeyed to Rome to lay the matter before the Pope.</p> + + <p>Pope Paschal was fully alive to the mischief of making the bishops and + clergy mere officers of kings, and it was soon seen there could be no + dispensations from Rome even for Henry. All that the Pope would allow was + that bishops might do homage to the Crown for their temporal rights, and + with this Henry had to be content.</p> + + <p>It was three years later before Anselm returned, and his course was + now nearly run. He died at peace on April 21st, 1109, having wrought to + no small purpose for religious liberty and the independence of the + clergy. (The demand for political and social independence always follows + the struggle for independence in religion.) Anselm spent the greater part + of his life after his enthronement at Canterbury in battling for + independence of the Crown; a century later Archbishop Stephen was to + carry the battle still further, and win wider liberties for England from + the Crown.</p> + + <p>Of Anselm's general love of liberty and hatred of all tyranny many + stories are told. One fact may be recalled. The Church Synod, which met + at Westminster in 1102, at Anselm's request, attacked the slave trade as + a "wicked trade used hitherto in England, by which men are sold like + brute animals," and framed a Church rule against its continuance.</p> + + <p>In spite of this decree, serfdom lingered in England for centuries, + but hiring superseded open buying and selling of men. (The African slave + trade was the work of the Elizabethan seamen, and was excused, as slavery + in the United States was excused, by the Protestant Churches on the + ground of the racial inferiority of the negro.)</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Thomas à Becket and Henry II.</font></h4> + + <p>Resistance to autocracy is often more needed against a strong and just + king than it is against an unprincipled profligate. Henry II.'s love of + order and peace, the strength and energy he spent in curtailing the power + of the barons, and in making firm the foundations of our national system + of petty sessions and assize courts have made for him an enduring fame. + Henry II. was a great lawyer; he was "the flower of the princes of his + world," in contemporary eyes; but it was as an autocrat he would rule. + Against this autocracy Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, + protested, and the protest cost him five years of exile, and finally his + life. The manner of his death earned for the Archbishop the title of + martyr, and popular acclamation required him to be canonised as a + saint,<a name="footnotetag7" href="#footnote7"><sup>[7]</sup></a> and his + name to be long cherished with deep devotion by the English people. Both + Henry and Thomas stand out honourably, but the former would have brought + all England under one great centralised authority, with the Crown not + only predominant but absolute in its supremacy, and the Archbishop + contended for the great mass of poor and needy people to mitigate the + harshness of the law, and to maintain the liberties of the Church against + the encroachments of sovereignty. "Nothing is more certain," as the old + writer put it, "than that both strove earnestly to do the will of God, + one for the sake of his realm, the other on behalf of his Church. But + whether of the two was zealous in wisdom is not plain to man, who is so + easily mistaken, but to the Lord, Who will judge between them at the last + day."</p> + + <p>Becket was the first English-born Archbishop of Canterbury since the + Norman Conquest. Henry, on his accession, clove to him in friendship, + made him Lord Chancellor in 1155, and on Archbishop Theobald's death, the + monks of Canterbury at once accepted Henry's advice and elected him to + the vacant see. Becket himself knew the King too well to desire the + appointment, and warned Henry not to press the matter, and prophesied + that their friendship would be turned to bitter enmity. But Henry's mind + was made up. As Chancellor, Becket had shown no ecclesiastical bias. He + had taxed clergy and laity with due impartiality, and his legal decisions + had been given without fear or favour. Henry counted on Becket to act + with the same indifference as Archbishop, to be the King's vicegerent + during the royal absence in France. And here Henry, wise as he was in + many things, mistook his man. As Chancellor of England Becket conceived + his business to be the administration of the laws: as Archbishop he was + first and foremost the champion of the Christian religion, the protector + of the poor, and the defender of the liberties of the Church. All + unwilling, like his great predecessor, St. Anselm, to become archbishop, + from the hour of his consecration to the See of Canterbury, in 1162, + Becket was as firm as Anselm had been in resisting the absolutism of the + King. To the King's extreme annoyance the Chancellorship was at once + given up—the only instance known of the voluntary resignation of + the Chancellorship by layman or ecclesiastic,<a name="footnotetag8" + href="#footnote8"><sup>[8]</sup></a> and all the amusements of the Court + and the business of the world were laid aside by the new archbishop. The + care of his diocese, the relief of the poor and the sick, and attendance + at the sacred offices of the Church were henceforth the work of the man + who had been Henry's best-loved companion, and within a year of his + enthronement friendship with the King was broken.</p> + + <p>The first point at issue was whether there should be one common + jurisdiction in all the land, or whether the Church courts should still + exist. These Church courts had been set up by William the Conqueror and + Lanfranc, in order that the clergy should not be mixed up in ordinary law + matters, and should be excluded strictly from the common courts. No + penalty involving bloodshed could be inflicted in the Church courts, and + all the savage barbarities of mutilation, common enough as punishments in + the King's court, were forbidden. Henry II., apart from his strong desire + for centralisation in government, wanted these Church courts abolished, + because every clerk who offended against the law escaped ordinary + punishment, no matter what the charge might be. Archbishop Thomas saw + that in the Church courts there was some protection, not only for the + clergy, but for all minor ecclesiastics, and for widows and orphans, + against the horrible legal cruelties of the age. "It must be held in mind + that the Archbishop had on his side the Church or <i>Canon Law</i>, which + he had sworn to obey, and certainly the law courts erred as much on the + side of harshness and cruelty as those of the Church on that of foolish + pity towards evil doers."<a name="footnotetag9" + href="#footnote9"><sup>[9]</sup></a></p> + + <p>Before this dispute had reached its climax Thomas had boldly taken + measures against some of the King's courtiers who were defrauding the See + of Canterbury; and he had successfully withstood Henry's plan for turning + the old Dane-geld shire tax, which was paid to the sheriff for the + defence of the country and the up-keep of roads, into a tax to be + collected by the Crown as part of the royal revenue. Thomas told the King + plainly that this tax was a voluntary offering to be paid to the sheriffs + only "so long as they shall serve as fitly and maintain and defend our + defendants," and said point blank that he would not suffer a penny to be + taken off his lands for the King's purposes. Henry was obliged to yield, + and this is the first case known of resistance to the royal will in the + matter of taxation.</p> + + <p>The case of clerical offenders, and the jurisdiction of the courts + came before a great council at Westminster in 1163. Henry declared that + criminous clerks should be deprived of their office in the Church courts, + and then handed over to the King's courts for punishment. Thomas replied + that the proposal was contrary to the religious liberties of the land, + but he met with little support from the rest of the bishops. "Better the + liberties of the Church perish than that we perish ourselves," they cried + in fear of the King. Henry followed up his proposal by calling on the + bishops to abide by the old customs of the realm, as settled by his + grandfather, Henry I., and to this they all agreed, adding "saving the + rights of our order."</p> + + <p>A list of the old customs was drawn up, and sixteen + <i>Constitutions</i>, or articles, were presented to the bishops at the + Great Council of Clarendon, in January, 1164. To many of these + Constitutions Thomas objected; notably (1) That clerks were to be tried + in the King's courts for offences of common law. (2) That neither + archbishops, bishops, nor beneficed clerks were to leave the kingdom + without royal permission. (This would not only stop appeals to Rome, it + would make pilgrimages or attendance at General Councils impossible + without the King's consent.) (3) That no member of the King's household + was to be excommunicated without the King's permission. (4) That no + appeals should be taken beyond the Archbishop's court, except to be + brought before the King. (This definite prohibition of appeals to Rome + left the King absolute master in England.) The last article declared that + neither serfs nor the sons of villeins were to be ordained without the + consent of the lord on whose land they were born. Against his own + judgment Thomas yielded to the entreaties of the bishops, and agreed to + accept the Constitutions of Clarendon, but no sooner had he done so than + he bitterly repented, and wrote off to the Pope acknowledging his + mistake. Pope Alexander III. was mainly anxious to prevent open + hostilities between Henry and the Archbishop, and wrote calmly that he + was absolved, without suggesting any blame to the King.</p> + + <p>Henry now saw that the Archbishop, and only the Archbishop, stood in + the way of the royal will, and when another Council met at Northampton, + in October, 1164, the King was ready to drive Thomas out of office. + Before this Council Thomas was charged with having refused justice to + John, the Treasury-Marshall, and with contempt of the King's court, and + was heavily fined. It was difficult to get sentence pronounced, for the + barons declined to sit as judges on an archbishop; but at length, Henry, + Bishop of Winchester, on the King's order, declared the sentence. Henry + followed up the attack next day by calling upon Thomas to account for + 30,000 marks spent by him while Chancellor. In vain he proved that the + Justiciar had declared him free of all claims when he laid down the + Chancellorship, that the charge was totally unexpected; the King refused + to stay the proceedings unless Thomas would sign the Constitutions of + Clarendon.</p> + + <p>Consultation with the bishops brought no help. "The King has declared, + so it is said, that he and you cannot both remain in England as king and + archbishop. It would be much safer to resign everything and submit to his + mercy"; thus spake Hilary, of Chichester, and his fellow-bishops all + urged resignation or submission.</p> + + <p>Two days later the Archbishop came into the Council in full robes with + the Cross in his hand. Earl Robert, of Leicester, rose to pass sentence + upon him and at once the Archbishop refused to hear him. "Neither law nor + reason permit children to pass sentence on their father," he declared. "I + will not hear this sentence of the King, or any judgment of yours. For, + under God, I will be judged by the Pope alone, to whom before you all + here I appeal, placing the Church of Canterbury under God's protection + and the protection of the Pope."</p> + + <p>There were shouts of anger at these words, and some tore rushes from + the floor and flung at him, but no one dared to stop the Archbishop's + passage as he passed from the hall. It was useless to look for help or + justice in England, and that very night Thomas left England for Flanders + to appeal to Rome.</p> + + <p>But Pope Alexander could do no more for Thomas than his predecessor + had done for Anselm; only he would not allow any resignation from + Canterbury. Henry himself appealed to the Pope in 1166, fearing + excommunication by the Archbishop; "thus by a strange fate it happened + that the King, while striving for those 'ancient customs' by which he + endeavoured to prevent any right of appeal (to the Pope), was doomed to + confirm the right of appeal for his own safety." The Pope did what he + could to arrange a reconciliation, but it was not till 1170 that the + King, seriously alarmed that Thomas would place England under an + interdict, agreed to a reconciliation.</p> + + <p>On December 1st the exile was over, and Thomas landed at Sandwich, and + went at once to Canterbury. There were many who doubted whether there + could be lasting peace between the King and the Archbishop, and while the + bishops generally hated the Primate's return, the nobles spoke openly of + him as a traitor to the King.</p> + + <p>The end was near. Thomas, asked to withdraw the sentence of + excommunication he had passed against the Archbishop of York and the + Bishop of London and Salisbury for violating the privileges of + Canterbury, answered that the matter must go before the Pope. The + bishops, instead of going to Rome, hastened to Henry, who was keeping his + Court at Bur, in France.</p> + + <p>Henry, at the complaint of the bishops, broke out into one of those + terrible fits of anger which overcame him from time to time, and four + knights left the Court saying, "All this trouble will be at an end when + Thomas is dead, and not before." On December 29th these knights were at + Canterbury, and at nightfall, just when vespers had begun, they slew + Archbishop Thomas by the great pillar in the Cathedral. So died this + great Archbishop for the liberties of the Church, and, as it seemed to + him, for the welfare of the people.</p> + + <p>Henry was horrified at the news of the Archbishop's death, and + hastened to beg absolution from Rome for the rash words that had provoked + the murder. In the presence of the Papal legate he promised to give up + the Constitutions of Clarendon, nor in the remaining eighteen years of + his reign did Henry make any fresh attempt to bring the Church under the + subjection of the Crown.</p> + + <p>To the great bulk of English people Thomas was a saint and martyr, and + numerous churches were dedicated in his name. More than three hundred + years later Henry VIII. decided that St. Thomas was an enemy of princes, + that his shrine at Canterbury must be destroyed, and his festival + unhallowed. But the fame of Thomas à Becket has survived the censure of + Henry VIII., and his name shines clearly across the centuries. Democracy + has been made possible by the willingness of brave men in earlier + centuries to resist, to the death, an absolutism that would have left + England bound and chained to the king's throne.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Stephen Langton and John</font></h4> + + <p>Stephen Langton was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury in June, + 1207, on the nomination of Pope Innocent III.; the monks of Canterbury, + who had proposed their own superior, consenting to the appointment, for + Langton had a high reputation for learning and was known to be of exalted + character. But King John, who had wanted a man of his own heart for the + archbishopric—John of Gray, Bishop of Norwich, commonly spoken of + as "a servant of Mammon, and an evil shepherd that devoured his own + sheep"—was enraged, and refusing to acknowledge Langton, defied the + Pope, drove the monks out of the country, and declared that anyone who + acknowledged Stephen Langton as archbishop should be accounted a public + enemy. So it came about that the great English statesman who broke down + the foulest and worst tyranny the land had known, and won for England the + Great Charter of its liberties, was a nominee of the Pope, and was to + find himself under the displeasure of the Papal legate when the Charter + had been signed! For six years John kept Stephen out of Canterbury, while + England lay under an interdict, with its King excommunicate and outside + the pale of the Church. Most of the bishops fled abroad, "fearing the + King, but afraid to obey him for dread of the Pope," and John laid hands + on Church property and filled the royal treasury with the spoils of + churchmen and Jews. But in 1213 John's position had become precarious, + for the northern barons were plotting his overthrow, and the Pope had + absolved all his subjects from allegiance, and given sentence that "John + should be thrust from his throne and another worthier than he should + reign in his stead," naming Philip of France as his successor. John was + aware that he could not count on the support of the barons in a war with + France, and a prophecy of Peter, the Wakefield Hermit, that the crown + would be lost before Ascension Day, made him afraid of dying + excommunicate. Accordingly John decided to get the Pope on his side. He + agreed to receive Pandulf, the Papal legate; to acknowledge Stephen; make + good the damage done to the Church, and, in addition, voluntarily ("of + our own good free will and by the common counsel of our barons") + surrendered "to God and to the Holy Mother Church of Rome, and to Pope + Innocent and his Catholic successors," the whole realm of England and + Ireland, "with all rights thereunto appertaining, to receive them back + and hold them thenceforth as a feudatory of God and the Roman Church." He + swore fealty to the Pope for both realms, and promised a yearly tribute + of 1,000 marks.</p> + + <p>This abject submission to the Pope was a matter of policy. John cared + nothing for any appearance of personal or national humiliation, and as he + had broken faith with all in England, so, if it should suit his purpose, + would he as readily break faith with Rome. But the immediate advantage of + having the Pope for his protector seemed considerable. "For when once he + had put himself under apostolical protection and made his realms a part + of the patrimony of St. Peter, there was not in the Roman world a + sovereign who durst attack him or would invade his lands, in such awe was + Pope Innocent held above all his predecessors for many years past."<a + name="footnotetag10" href="#footnote10"><sup>[10]</sup></a></p> + + <p>Stephen landed in June, 1213, and at Winchester John was formally + absolved and the coronation oaths were renewed. It was very soon seen + what manner of man the Archbishop was. In August a great gathering of the + barons took place in St. Paul's, and there Langton recited the coronation + charter of Henry I., and told all those assembled that these rights and + liberties were to be recovered; and "the barons swore they would fight + for these liberties, even unto death if it were needful, and the + Archbishop promised that he would help with all his might." The weakness + of the barons hitherto had been their want of cohesion, their endless + personal feuds, and the lack of any feeling of national responsibility. + Langton laboured to create a national party and to win recognition of law + and justice for all in England; and the Great Charter was the issue of + his work.</p> + + <p>The state of things was intolerable. The whole administration of + justice was corrupt. The decisions of the King's courts were as arbitrary + as the methods employed to enforce sentence. Free men were arrested, + evicted, exiled, and outlawed without even legal warrant or the semblance + of a fair trial. All the machinery of government set up by the Norman + kings, and developed under Henry II., had, in John's hands, become a mere + instrument of despotic extortion, to be used against anybody and + everybody, from earl to villein, who could be fleeced by the King's + servants.</p> + + <p>John saw the tide rising against him, and endeavoured to divide barons + from Churchmen by proclaiming that the latter should have free and + undisturbed right of election when bishoprics and other ecclesiastical + offices were vacant. But the attempt failed. Langton was too resolute a + statesman, and his conception of the primacy of Canterbury was too high + for any turning back from the work he had set himself to accomplish. The + rights of election in the Church were important, but the restoration of + justice and order and the ending of tyranny were, in his eyes, hardly + less important. John, who had been at war in France, returned defeated + from his last attempt to recover for the Crown the lost Angevin + provinces, to face a discontent that was both wide and general. The + people, and in especial the barons and knights whom for fourteen years + John had robbed, insulted, and spurned, and whose liberties he had + trampled upon, were ready at last under wise leadership to end the + oppression.</p> + + <p>In November, 1214, the Archbishop saw that the time was come for + action, and again the barons met in council. Before the high altar in the + Abbey Church of St. Edmundsbury they swore that if the King sought to + evade their demand for the laws and liberties of Henry I.'s charter, they + would make war upon him until he pledged himself to confirm their rights + in a charter under royal seal. "They also agreed that after Christmas + they would go all together to the King and ask him for a confirmation of + these liberties, and that meanwhile they would so provide themselves with + horses and arms that if the King should seek to break his oath, they + might, by seizing his castles, compel him to make satisfaction. And when + these things were done every man returned to his own home."<a + name="footnotetag11" href="#footnote11"><sup>[11]</sup></a></p> + + <p>John now asked for time to consider these requests, and for the next + six months worked hard to break up the barons' confederacy, to gain + friends and supporters, and to get mercenaries from Poitou. It was all to + no purpose. As a last resource he took the Cross, expecting to be saved + as a crusader from attack, and at the same time he wrote to the Pope to + help his faithful vassal. The Pope's letters rebuking the barons for + conspiracy against the King were unheeded, and the mercenaries were + inadequate when John was confronted by the whole baronage in arms.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">The Great Charter</font></h4> + + <p>In May a list of articles to be signed was sent to John; and on his + refusal the barons formally renounced their homage and fealty and flew to + arms. John was forced to surrender before this host. On June 15th he met + the barons at Runnymede, between Staines and Windsor, and there, in the + presence of Archbishop Stephen and "a multitude of most illustrious + knights," sealed the Great Charter of the Liberties of England.</p> + + <p>This Great Charter was in the main a renewal of the old rights and + liberties promised by Henry I. It set up no new rights, conferred no new + privileges, and sanctioned no changes in the Constitution. Its real and + lasting importance is due to its being a written document—for the + first time in England it was down in black and white, for all to read, + what the several rights and duties of King and people were, and in what + the chief points of the Constitution consisted.</p> + + <p><a name="plateII"></a></p> + + <div class="figcenter" style="width:50%;"> + <a href="images/plateII.jpg"><img width="100%" src="images/plateII.jpg" + alt="Magna Charta" /></a> + <h4>MAGNA CHARTA</h4> + + <h4>A facsimile of the Original in the British Museum.</h4> + </div> + <p>The Great Charter is a great table of laws. It marks the beginning of + written legislation, and anticipates Acts of Parliament. Unwritten laws + and traditions were not abolished: they remain with us to this day; but + the written law had become a necessity when "the bonds of unwritten + custom" failed to restrain kings and barons. The Great Charter also took + into account the rights of free men, and of the tenants of the King's + vassals. If the barons and knights had their grievances to be redressed, + the commons and the freeholding peasants needed protection against the + lawless exactions of their overlords.<a name="footnotetag12" + href="#footnote12"><sup>[12]</sup></a></p> + + <p>Sixty-three clauses make up Magna Charta, and we may summarise them as + follows:—</p> + + <p>(1) The full rights and liberties of the Church are acknowledged; + bishops shall be freely elected, so that the Church of England shall be + free.<a name="footnotetag13" href="#footnote13"><sup>[13]</sup></a></p> + + <p>(2-8) The King's tenants are to have their feudal rights secured + against abuse. Widows—in the wardship of the Crown—are to be + protected against robbery and against compulsion to a second + marriage.</p> + + <p>(9-11) The harsh rules for securing the payment of debts to the Crown + and to the Jews (in whose debts the Crown had an interest) are to be + relaxed.</p> + + <p>(12-14) No scutage or aid (save for the three regular feudal + aids—the ransom of the King, the knighting of his eldest son, and + the marriage of his eldest daughter) is to be imposed except by the + Common Council of the nation; and to this Council archbishops, bishops, + abbots, earls, and greater barons are to be called by special writ, while + all who held their land directly from the King, and were of lesser rank, + were to be summoned by a general writ addressed to the sheriff of the + county. Forty days' notice of the meeting was to be given, and also the + cause of the assembly. The action of those who obeyed the summons was to + be taken to represent the action of all.<a name="footnotetag14" + href="#footnote14"><sup>[14]</sup></a> (This last clause is never + repeated in later confirmations of the Great Charter.)</p> + + <p>(15-16) The powers of lords over their tenants are limited and + defined.</p> + + <p>(17-19) A Court of Common Pleas is to be held in some fixed place so + that suitors are not obliged to follow the King's Curia. Cases touching + the ownership of land are to be tried in the counties by visiting + justices, and by four knights chosen by the county.</p> + + <p>(20-23) No freeman is to be fined beyond his offence, and the penalty + is to be fixed by a local jury. Earls and barons to be fined by their + peers; and clerks only according to the amount of their lay property.</p> + + <p>(24-33) The powers of sheriffs, constables, coroners, and bailiffs of + the King are strictly defined. No sheriff is to be a justice in his own + county. Royal officers are to pay for all the goods taken by requisition; + money is not to be taken in lieu of service from those who are willing to + perform the service. The horses and carts of freemen are not to be seized + for royal work without consent. The weirs in the Thames, Medway, and + other rivers in England are to be removed.</p> + + <p>(34-38) Uniformity of weights and measures is directed. Inquests are + to be granted freely. The sole wardship of minors who have other lords + will not be claimed by the King, except in special cases. No bailiff may + force a man to ordeal without witnesses.</p> + + <p>(39-40) No free man is to be taken, imprisoned, ousted of his land, + outlawed, banished, or hurt in any way save by the judgment of his peers, + or the law of the land. The King is not to sell, delay, or deny right or + justice to anyone.</p> + + <p>(41-42) Merchants may go out or come in without paying exorbitant + customs. All "lawful" men are to have a free right to pass in and out of + England in time of peace.</p> + + <p>(44-47) An inquiry into the Forest Laws and a reform of the forest + abuses are promised. All forests made in present reign to be disforested, + and all fences in rivers thrown down.</p> + + <p>(49-60) The foreign mercenaries of the King, all the detested gang + that came with horses and arms to the hurt of the realm, are to be sent + out of the country. The Welsh princes and the King of Scots (who had + sided with the barons) are to have justice done. A general amnesty for + all political offences arising from the struggle is made.</p> + + <p>The last three articles appointed twenty-five barons, chosen out of + the whole baronage, to watch over the keeping of the Charter. They were + empowered to demand that any breach of the articles should at once be put + right, and, in default to make war on the King till the matter was + settled to their satisfaction. Finally there was the oath to be taken on + the part of the King, and on the part of the barons that the articles of + the Charter should be observed in good faith according to their plain + meaning.</p> + + <p>The Great Charter was signed, and then in a wild burst of rage John + shouted to his foreign supporters, "They have given me five-and-twenty + over-kings!"</p> + + <p>Within a week of Runnymede the Great Charter was published throughout + England, but neither King nor barons looked for peace. John was ready to + break all oaths, and while he set about increasing his army of + mercenaries, he also appealed to the Pope, as his overlord, protesting + that the Charter had been wrested from him by force.</p> + + <p>Langton and the bishops left for Rome to attend a general council. + Pope Innocent declared the Charter annulled on the ground that both King + and barons had made the Pope overlord of England, and that consequently + nothing in the government could be changed without his consent. But with + Langton, the bishops, and the Papal legate all away at Rome, there was no + one to publish the Papal repudiation of the Charter, and the King and + barons were already at civil war. Pope Innocent III. was dead in the + spring of 1216, and John's wretched reign was over when the King lay + dying at Newark in October.</p> + + <p>Stephen Langton was back again at Canterbury in 1217, and for eleven + more years worked with William the Marshall and Hubert of Burgh to + maintain public peace and order during Henry III.'s boyhood. At Oxford, + in 1223, the Charter was confirmed afresh, and two years later it was + solemnly proclaimed again when the King wanted a new subsidy. As long as + the great statesmen were in office Henry III. was saved from the weakness + that cursed his rule in England for nearly forty years. But William the + Marshall died in 1219, Archbishop Stephen in 1228, and Hubert was + dismissed from the justiciarship in 1234. A horde of greedy aliens from + Poitou fed at the Court of Henry and devoured the substance of England, + until men arose, as Langton had arisen, to demand the enforcement of + charters and a just administration of the laws.</p> + + <p>Again a national party arises under the leadership of Simon of + Montfort, and in their victory over the King we get the beginnings of + Parliamentary government and popular representation. Every step forward + is followed by reaction, but the ground lost is recovered, and the next + step taken marks always a steady advance. Over and over again it has + seemed that all the liberties won in the past were lost, but looking back + we can see that there has been no lasting defeat of liberty. Only for a + time have the forces of oppression triumphed; it is soon found impossible + in England to rest under tyranny, or to govern without the consent of the + governed. And every fresh campaign for the restriction of kingly power + brings us nearer the day of democratic government.</p> + + <br clear="all" /> +<hr class="full" /> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTERII">CHAPTER II</a></h3> + +<h3>THE BEGINNING OF PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION</h3> + +<h4><font class="sc">Democracy and Representative Government</font></h4> + + <p>To-day democracy takes the form of representative government in + civilised countries; and for representative government contend the + nations and peoples seeking democracy.</p> + + <p>The weak spots in all popular electoral systems are obvious, and the + election of representatives is always a subject for jokes and satire. It + could hardly be otherwise. For the best machinery in the world needs some + sort of sympathetic intelligence in the person who manipulates it, and + the machinery of popular elections can only be worked successfully with a + large measure of sincerity and good will. In the hands of the ambitious, + the self-seeking, and the unscrupulous, democratic politics are a machine + for frustrating popular representation, and as this state of things is + always prevalent somewhere, the humorist and the satirist naturally treat + politics without respect.</p> + + <p>But in spite of all its faults and failings—glaring as these + are—mankind can at present devise nothing better than + representative government, and the abuse of power, the cunning, roguery, + and corruption that too often accompany popular elections and democratic + administration, rather stir honest men to action than make them incline + to dictatorship and absolutism.</p> + + <p>The present notion about representative government is that it makes + possible the expression of popular will, and can ensure the fulfilment of + that will. In the thirteenth century, when we get the beginnings of + representative government, there is no question of the people making + positive proposals in legislation, but there is a distinct belief that + the consent of the governed ought to be obtained by the ruling power. The + mere legal maxim from the Code of Justinian, that "that which touches all + shall be approved by all,"<a name="footnotetag15" + href="#footnote15"><sup>[15]</sup></a> "becomes transmuted by Edward I. + into a great political and constitutional principle."<a + name="footnotetag16" href="#footnote16"><sup>[16]</sup></a></p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Representative Theory First Found in Ecclesiastical Assemblies</font></h4> + + <p>More than a century earlier the first recorded appearances of town + representatives are found in the Spanish Cortes of Aragon and Castile.<a + name="footnotetag17" href="#footnote17"><sup>[17]</sup></a> St. Dominic + makes a representative form of government the rule in his Order of + Preaching Friars, each priory sending two representatives to its + provincial chapter, and each province sending two representatives to the + general chapter of the Order.</p> + + <p>In England, Simon of Montfort, the son of Simon, the great warrior of + the Albigensian wars and the warm friend of Dominic, was in close + association with the friars. Hence there was nothing so very remarkable + in Earl Simon issuing writs for the Full Parliament of 1265 for the + return of two burgesses from each city and borough. He had seen + representative government at work among the friars in their chapters. Why + should the plan be not equally useful in the government of the country?<a + name="footnotetag18" href="#footnote18"><sup>[18]</sup></a> There is no + evidence that the summons to the burgesses was regarded as a + revolutionary proposal—so lightly comes political change in + England.</p> + + <p>The name of Simon of Montfort, Earl of Leicester, must always be + associated with the beginning of representative government in England. + Let us recall how it was the great Earl came to be in power in 1265.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">The Misrule of Henry III.</font></h4> + + <p>Henry III. was always in want of money, and his crew of royal + parasites from Poitou drained the exchequer. Over and over again the + barons called on the King to get rid of his favourites, and to end the + misrule that afflicted the country; and the King from time to time gave + promises of amendment. But the promises were always broken. As long as + Henry could get money he was averse from all constitutional reform. In + 1258 the barons were determined that a change must be made. "If the King + can't do without us in war, he must listen to us in peace," they + declared. "And what sort of peace is this when the King is led astray by + bad counsellors, and the land is filled with foreign tyrants who grind + down native-born Englishmen?"</p> + + <p>William of Rishanger, a contemporary writer, expressed the popular + feeling in well-known verses:</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"The King that tries without advice to seek his country's weal</p> + <p>Must often fail; he cannot know the wants and woes they feel.</p> + <p>The Parliament must tell the King how he may serve them best,</p> + <p>And he must see their wants fulfilled and injuries redressed.</p> + <p>A King should seek his people's good and not his own sweet will.</p> + <p>Nor think himself a slave because men hold him back from ill."</p> + </div> + </div> + <p>"The King's mistakes call for special treatment," said Richard, Earl + of Gloucester.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Simon of Montfort, Leader of the National Party</font></h4> + + <p>So that year a Parliament met in Oxford, in the Dominican Priory. It + was called the "Mad Parliament," because the barons all came to it fully + armed, and civil war seemed imminent. But Earl Simon and Richard of + Gloucester carried the barons with them in demanding reform. Henry was + left without supporters, and civil war was put off for five years.</p> + + <p>The work done at this Parliament of Oxford was an attempt to make the + King abide loyally by the Great Charter; and the Provisions of Oxford, as + they were called, set up a standing council of fifteen, by whom the King + was to be guided, and ordered that Parliament was to meet three times a + year: at Candlemas (February 2nd), on June 1st, and at Michaelmas. Four + knights were to be chosen by the King's lesser freeholders in each county + to attend this Parliament, and the baronage was to be represented by + twelve commissioners.</p> + + <p>It was an oligarchy that the Provisions of Oxford established, + "intended rather to fetter the King than to extend or develop the action + of the community at large. The baronial council clearly regards itself as + competent to act on behalf of all the estates of the realm, and the + expedient of reducing the national deliberations to three sessions of + select committees betrays a desire to abridge the frequent and somewhat + irksome duty of attendance in Parliament rather than to share the central + legislative and deliberative power with the whole body of the people. It + must, however, be remembered that the scheme makes a very indistinct + claim to the character of a final arrangement."<a name="footnotetag19" + href="#footnote19"><sup>[19]</sup></a></p> + + <p>For a time things went better in England. The aliens at Henry's Court + fled over-seas, and their posts were filled by Englishmen. Parliament + also promised that the vassals of the nobles should have better + treatment, and that the sheriffs should be chosen by the shire-moots, the + county freeholders.</p> + + <p>But Henry's promises were quickly broken, and war broke out on the + Welsh borders between Simon of Montfort's friend Llewellyn and Mortimer + and the Marchers. Edward, Prince of Wales, stood by the Provisions of + Oxford for a few years, but supported his father when the latter refused + to re-confirm the Provisions in 1263. As a last resource to prevent civil + war, Simon and Henry agreed to appeal to King Louis of France to + arbitrate on the fulfilment of the Provisions. The Pope had already + absolved Henry from obedience to the Provisions, and the Award of Louis, + given at Amiens and called the <i>Mise of Amiens</i>, was entirely in + Henry's favour. It annulled the Provisions of Oxford, left the King free + to appoint his own ministers, council, and sheriffs, to employ aliens, + and to enjoy power uncontrolled. But the former charters of the realm + were declared inviolate, and no reprisals were to take place.</p> + + <p>To Simon and most of the barons the Award was intolerable, and when + Henry returned from France with a large force ready to take the vengeance + which the Award had forbidden, civil war could not be prevented. London + rallied to Simon, and Oxford, the Cinque Ports, and the friars were all + on the side of the barons against the King.</p> + + <p>On May 14th, 1264, a pitched battle at Lewes ended in complete victory + for Simon, and found the King, Prince Edward, and the kinsmen and chief + supporters of the Crown prisoners in his hands.</p> + + <p>Peace was made, and a treaty—the <i>Mise of + Lewes</i>—drawn up and signed. Once more the King promised to keep + the Provisions and Charters, and to dismiss the aliens. He also agreed to + live thriftily till his debts were paid, and to leave his sons as + hostages with Earl Simon.</p> + + <p>Simon at once set about the work of reform. The King's Standing, or + Privy, Council was reconstituted, and the Parliamentary Commissioners + were abolished, "for Simon held it as much a man's duty to think and work + for his country as to fight for it." A marked difference is seen between + Simon's policy at Oxford and the policy after Lewes. The Provisions of + 1258 were restrictive. The Constitution of 1264 deliberately extended the + limits of Parliament. "Either Simon's views of a Constitution had rapidly + developed, or the influences which had checked them in 1258 were removed. + Anyhow, he had genius to interpret the mind of the nation, and to + anticipate the line which was taken by later progress."<a + name="footnotetag20" href="#footnote20"><sup>[20]</sup></a> What Simon + wanted was the approval of all classes of the community for his plans, + and to that end he issued writs for the Parliament—the <i>Full + Parliament</i>—of 1265.</p> + + <p>The great feature of this Parliament was that for the first time the + burgesses of each city and borough were summoned to send two + representatives. In addition, two knights were to come from each shire, + and clergy and barons as usual—though in the case of the earls and + barons only twenty-three were invited, for Simon had no desire for the + presence of those who were his enemies. The Full Parliament sat till + March, and then two months later war had once more blazed out. Earl + Gilbert of Gloucester broke away from Simon, Prince Edward escaped from + custody, and these two joined Lord Mortimer and the Welsh Marchers.</p> + + <p>On August 4th Edward surprised and routed the army of the younger + Simon near Kenilworth, and then advanced to crush the great Earl, who was + encamped at Evesham, waiting to join forces with his son. All hope of + escape for Earl Simon was lost, and he was outnumbered by seven to two. + But fly he would not. One by one the barons who stood by Simon were cut + down, but though wounded and dismounted, the great Earl "fought on to the + last like a giant for the freedom of England, till a foot soldier stabbed + him in the back under the mail, and he was borne down and slain." For + three hours the unequal fight lasted in the midst of storm and darkness, + and when it was over the Grey Friars carried the mangled body of the dead + Earl into the priory at Evesham, and laid it before the high altar, for + the poorer clergy and the common people all counted Simon of Montfort for + a saint.</p> + + <p>"Those who knew Simon praise his piety, admire his learning, and extol + his prowess as a knight and skill as a general. They tell of his simple + fare and plain russet dress, bear witness to his kindly speech and firm + friendship to all good men, describe his angry scorn for liars and unjust + men, and marvel at his zeal for truth and right, which was such that + neither pleasure nor threats nor promises could turn him aside from + keeping the oath he swore at Oxford; for he held up the good cause 'like + a pillar that cannot be moved, and, like a second Josiah, esteemed + righteousness the very healing of his soul.' As a statesman he wished to + bind the King to rule according to law, and to make the King's Ministers + responsible to a Full Parliament; and though he did not live to see the + success of his policy, he had pointed out the way by which future + statesmen might bring it about."<a name="footnotetag21" + href="#footnote21"><sup>[21]</sup></a></p> + + <p>In the hour of Simon's death it might seem that the cause of good + government was utterly lost, and for a time Henry triumphed with a fierce + reaction. But the very barons who had turned against Simon were quite + determined that the Charters should be observed, and Edward was to show, + on his coming to the throne, that he had grasped even more fully than + Simon the notion of a national representative assembly, and that he + accepted the principle, "that which touches all shall be approved by + all."</p> + + <p>Henry III. died in 1272, and it was not till two years later that + Edward I. was back in England from the crusades to take up the crown. It + was an age of great lawgivers; an age that saw St. Louis ruling in + France, Alfonso the Wise in Castile, the Emperor Frederick II.—the + Wonder of the World—in Sicily. In England Edward shaped the + Constitution and settled for future times the lines of Parliamentary + representative government.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Edward I.'s Model Parliament, 1295</font></h4> + + <p>For the first twenty years Edward's Parliaments were great assemblies + of barons and knights, and it was not till 1295 that the famous Model + Parliament was summoned. "It is very evident that common dangers must be + met by measures concerted in common," ran the writ to the bishops. Every + sheriff was to cause two knights to be elected from each shire, two + citizens from each city, two burgesses from each borough. The clergy were + to be fully represented from each cathedral and each diocese.</p> + + <p>Hitherto Parliament, save in 1265, had been little else than a feudal + court, a council of the King's tenants; it became, after 1295, a national + assembly. Edward's plan was that the three estates—clergy, barons, + and commons: those who pray, those who fight, and those who + work—should be represented. But the clergy always stood aloof, + preferring to meet in their own houses of convocation; and the + archbishops, bishops, and greater abbots only attended because they were + great holders of land and important feudal lords.</p> + + <p>Although the knights of the shire were of much the same class as the + barons, the latter received personal summons to attend, and the knights + joined with the representatives of the cities and boroughs. So the two + Houses of Parliament consisted of barons and bishops—lords + spiritual and lords temporal—and knights and commons; and we have + to-day the House of Lords and the House of Commons; the former, as in the + thirteenth century, lords spiritual and temporal, the latter, + representatives from counties and boroughs.</p> + + <p>The admission of elected representatives was to move, in course of + time, the centre of government from the Crown to the House of Commons; + but in Edward I.'s reign Parliament was just a larger growth of the + King's Council—the Council that Norman and Plantagenet kings relied + on for assistance in the administration of justice and the collection of + revenue. The judges of the supreme court were always summoned to + Parliament, as the law lords sit in the Upper House to-day.</p> + + <p>Money, or rather the raising of money, was the main cause for calling + a Parliament. The clergy at first voted their own grants to the Crown in + convocation, but came to agree to pay the taxes voted by Lords and + Commons, And Lords and Commons, instead of making separate grants, joined + in a common grant.</p> + + <p>"And, as the bulk of the burden fell upon the Commons, they adopted a + formula which placed the Commons in the foreground. The grant was made by + the Commons, with the assent of the Lords spiritual and temporal. This + formula appeared in 1395, and became the rule. In 1407, eight years after + Henry IV. came to the throne, he assented to the important principle that + money grants were to be initiated by the House of Commons, were not to be + reported to the King until both Houses were agreed, and were to be + reported by the Speaker of the Commons' House. This rule is strictly + observed at the present day. When a money bill, such as the Finance bill + for the year or the Appropriation bill, has been passed by the House of + Commons and agreed to by the House of Lords, it is, unlike all other + bills, returned to the House of Commons."<a name="footnotetag22" + href="#footnote22"><sup>[22]</sup></a> The Speaker, with his own hand, + delivers all money bills to the Clerk of Parliaments, the officer whose + business it is to signify the royal assent.</p> + + <p>In addition to voting money, the Commons, on the assembly of + Parliament, would petition for the redress of grievances. In the + thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, they were not legislators, but + petitioners for legislation; and as it often happened that their + petitions were not granted in the form they asked, it became a matter of + bitter complaint that the laws did not correspond with the petitions. + Henry V. in 1414 granted the request that "nothing should be enacted to + the petition of the Commons contrary to their asking, whereby they should + be bound without their assent"; and from that time it became customary + for bills to be sent up to the Crown instead of petitions, leaving the + King the alternative of assent or reaction.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">The Nobility Predominant in Parliament</font></h4> + + <p>In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the power of Parliament was + strong enough to force the abdication of two kings—Edward II. and + Richard II.—but not strong enough to free the land of the turbulent + authority of the nobles. This authority went down in the struggles of the + Lancastrians and Yorkists.</p> + + <p>"The bloody faction fights known as the Wars of the Roses brought the + Plantagenet dynasty to a close, weeded out the older nobility, and + cleared the way for a new form of monarchy."<a name="footnotetag23" + href="#footnote23"><sup>[23]</sup></a></p> + + <p>"The high nobility killed itself out. The great barons who adhered to + the 'Red Rose' or the 'White Rose,' or who fluctuated from one to the + other, became poorer, fewer, and less potent every year. When the great + struggle ended at Bosworth, a large part of the greatest combatants were + gone. The restless, aspiring, rich barons, who made the civil war, were + broken by it. Henry VII. attained a kingdom in which there was a + Parliament to advise, but scarcely a Parliament to control."<a + name="footnotetag24" href="#footnote24"><sup>[24]</sup></a></p> + + <p>It is important to note the ascendancy of the barons in the medieval + Parliaments, and their self-destruction in the Wars of the Roses. Unless + we realise how very largely the barons were the Parliament, it is + difficult to understand how it came about that Parliament was so utterly + impotent under the Tudors. The Wars of the Roses killed off the mighty + parliamentarians, and it took a hundred years to raise the country + landowners into a party which, under Eliot, Hampden, and Pym, was to make + the House of Commons supreme.</p> + + <p>"The civil wars of many years killed out the old councils (if I might + so say): that is, destroyed three parts of the greater nobility, who were + its most potent members, tired the small nobility and gentry, and + overthrew the aristocratic organisation on which all previous effectual + resistance to the sovereign had been based."<a name="footnotetag25" + href="#footnote25"><sup>[25]</sup></a></p> + + <p>To get an idea of the weakness of Parliament when the Tudors ruled, we + have but to suppose at the present day a Parliament deprived of all + front-bench men on both sides of the House, and of the leaders of the + Irish and Labour parties, and a House of Lords deprived of all Ministers + and ex-Ministers.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">The Medieval National Assemblies</font></h4> + + <p>Before passing to the Parliamentary revival of the seventeenth + century, there still remain one or two points to be considered relating + to the early national assemblies of the thirteenth and fourteenth + centuries.</p> + + <p>(1) <i>Who were the electors in the Middle Ages?</i>—In the + counties, all who were entitled to attend and take part in the + proceedings of the county court had the right of electing the knight of + the shire; and "it is most probable, on the evidence of records, on the + analogies of representative usage, and on the testimony of later facts, + that the knights of the shire were elected by the full county court."<a + name="footnotetag26" href="#footnote26"><sup>[26]</sup></a></p> + + <p>The county court or shire-moot not only elected knights for + Parliament; it often enough elected them for local purposes as well. The + county coroner was elected in similar fashion by the county. All the + chief tenants and small freeholders were therefore the county electors; + but the tenants-in-chief (who held their lands from the Crown) and the + knights of the county had naturally considerably more influence than the + smaller men. "The chief lord of a great manor would have authority with + his tenants, freeholders as they might be, which would make their + theoretical equality a mere shadow, and would, moreover, be exercised all + the more easily because the right which it usurped was one which the + tenant neither understood nor cared for."<a name="footnotetag27" + href="#footnote27"><sup>[27]</sup></a></p> + + <p>It is difficult to decide to what extent the smaller freeholders could + take an active interest in the affairs of the county. As for the office + of knight of the shire, there was no competition in the thirteenth or + fourteenth century for the honour of going to Parliament, and it is + likely enough that the sheriff, upon whom rested the responsibility for + the elections, would in some counties be obliged to nominate and compel + the attendance of an unwilling candidate.</p> + + <p>(2) <i>Payment of Parliamentary Representatives.</i>—The fact + that Members of Parliament were paid by their constituents in the + thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries<a name="footnotetag28" + href="#footnote28"><sup>[28]</sup></a> made certain small freeholders as + anxious not to be included in the electorate as others were anxious not + to be elected to Parliament. It was recognised as "fair that those + persons who were excluded from the election should be exempt from + contribution to the wages. And to many of the smaller freeholders the + exemption from payment would be far more valuable than the privilege of + voting."<a name="footnotetag29" href="#footnote29"><sup>[29]</sup></a> + But the Commons generally petitioned for payment to be made by all + classes of freeholders, and when all allowance has been made for varying + customs and for local diversities and territorial influence, it is safe + to take it that the freeholders were the body of electors.</p> + + <p>In 1430, the eighth year of Henry VI., an Act was passed ordering that + electors must be resident in the country, and must have free land or + tenement to the value of 40s. a year at least; and this Act was in + operation till 1831.</p> + + <p>The county franchise was a simple and straightforward matter compared + with the methods of electing representatives from the boroughs. All that + the sheriff was ordered to do by writ was to provide for the return of + two members for each city or borough in his county; the places that were + to be considered as boroughs were not named. In the Middle Ages a town + might have no wish to be taxed for the wages of its Parliamentary + representative, and in that case would do its best to come to an + arrangement with the sheriff. (It was not till the sixteenth and + seventeenth centuries that a considerable increase of boroughs took + place. The Tudors created "pocket" and "rotten" boroughs in order to have + the nominees of the Crown in Parliament.) The size of the borough bore no + relation to its membership till the Reform Act of the nineteenth century, + and as the selection of towns to be represented was arbitrary, so the + franchise in the towns was equally unsettled. One or two places had a + wide franchise, others confined the vote to freemen and corporation + members. But in spite of the extraordinary vagaries of the borough + franchise, and the arbitrary selection of towns to be represented, these + early medieval Parliaments really did in an imperfect way represent the + nation—all but the peasants and artisans.</p> + + <p>"Our English Parliaments were <i>un</i>symmetrical realities. They + were elected anyhow. The sheriff had a considerable licence in sending + writs to boroughs, that is, he could in part pick its constituencies; and + in each borough there was a rush and scramble for the franchise, so that + the strongest local party got it whether few or many. But in England at + that time there was a great and distinct desire to know the opinion of + the nation, because there was a real and close necessity. The nation was + wanted to do something—to assist the sovereign in some war, to pay + some old debt, to contribute its force and aid in the critical juncture + of the time. It would not have suited the ante-Tudor kings to have had a + fictitious assembly; they would have lost their sole <i>feeler</i>, their + only instrument for discovering national opinion. Nor could they have + manufactured such an assembly if they wished. Looking at the mode of + election, a theorist would say that these Parliaments were but 'chance' + collections of influential Englishmen. There would be many corrections + and limitations to add to that statement if it were wanted to make it + accurate, but the statement itself hits exactly the principal excellence + of these Parliaments. If not 'chance' collections of Englishmen, they + were 'undesigned' collections; no administrations made them, or could + make them. They were bona fide counsellors, whose opinion might be wise + or unwise, but was anyhow of paramount importance, because their + co-operation was wanted for what was in hand."<a name="footnotetag30" + href="#footnote30"><sup>[30]</sup></a></p> + + <p>(3) <i>The political position of women in the Middle + Ages.</i>—Abbesses were summoned to the convocations of clergy in + Edward I.'s reign. Peeresses were permitted to be represented by proxy in + Parliament. The offices of sheriff, high constable, governor of a royal + castle, and justice of the peace have all been held by women. In fact, + the lady of the manor had the same rights as the lord of the manor, and + joined with men who were freeholders in electing knights of the shire + without question of sex disability.<a name="footnotetag31" + href="#footnote31"><sup>[31]</sup></a> (A survival of the medieval rights + of women may be seen in the power of women to present clergy to benefices + in the Church of England.)</p> + + <p>In the towns women were members of various guilds and companies + equally with men, and were burgesses and freewomen. Not till 1832 was the + word "male" inserted before "persons" in the charters of boroughs. "Never + before has the phrase 'male persons' appeared in any statute of the + realm. By this Act (the Reform Bill), therefore, women were technically + disfranchised for the first time in the history of the English + Constitution. The privilege of abstention was converted into the penalty + of exclusion."</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">No Theory of Democracy in the Middle Ages</font></h4> + + <p>The years of Simon of Montfort and Edward I., which saw the beginnings + of a representative national assembly, were not a time of theoretical + discussion on political rights. The English nation, indeed, has ever been + averse from political theories. The notion of a carefully balanced + constitution was outside the calculations of medieval statesmen, and the + idea of political democracy was not included among their visions.</p> + + <p>"Even the scholastic writers, amid their calculations of all possible + combinations of principles in theology and morals, well aware of the + difference between the 'rex politicus' who rules according to law, and + the tyrant who rules without it, and of the characteristics of monarchy, + aristocracy, and democracy, with their respective corruptions, contented + themselves for the most part with balancing the spiritual and secular + powers, and never broached the idea of a growth into political + enfranchisement. Yet, in the long run, this has been the ideal towards + which the healthy development of national life in Europe has constantly + tended, only the steps towards it have not been taken to suit a + preconceived theory."<a name="footnotetag32" + href="#footnote32"><sup>[32]</sup></a></p> + + <p>Each step towards democracy has been taken "to suit the convenience of + party or the necessities of kings, to induce the newly admitted classes + to give their money, to produce political contentment."</p> + + <p>The only two principles that are apparent in the age-long struggles + for political freedom in England, that are recognised and acknowledged, + are: (1) That that which touches all shall be approved by all; (2) that + government rests on the consent of the governed. Over and over again + these two principles may be seen at work.</p> + + <br clear="all" /> +<hr class="full" /> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTERIII">CHAPTER III</a></h3> + +<h3>POPULAR INSURRECTION IN ENGLAND</h3> + +<h4><font class="sc">General Results of Popular Risings</font></h4> + + <p>Popular insurrection has never been successful in England; a violent + death and a traitor's doom have been the lot of every leader of the + common people who took up arms against the Government. The Civil War that + brought Charles I. to the scaffold, and the Revolution that deposed James + II. and set William of Orange on the throne, were the work of country + gentlemen and Whig statesmen, not of the labouring people.</p> + + <p>But if England has never seen popular revolution triumphant and + democracy set up by force of arms, the earlier centuries witnessed more + than one effort to gain by open insurrection some measure of freedom for + the working people of the land.</p> + + <p>No other way than violent resistance seemed possible to peasants and + artisans in the twelfth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, + if their wrongs were to be mitigated and their rulers to be called to + account.</p> + + <p>Langton and Simon of Montfort had placed some check on the power of + the Crown, had laid the foundations of political liberty, and marked the + road to be travelled; but the lot of the labouring people remained + unheeded and voiceless in the councils of the nation. What could they do + but take up arms to end an intolerable oppression?</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">William FitzOsbert, called Longbeard, 1196</font></h4> + + <p>The first serious protest came from the London workmen in the reign of + Richard I.; and FitzOsbert, known as Longbeard, was the spokesman of the + popular discontent.</p> + + <p>The King wanted money, chiefly for his crusades in Palestine. He had + no inclination to personal government, and the business of ruling England + was in the hands of Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, the + justiciar or King's lieutenant. Richard left England for Normandy in + 1194, and returned no more. England to him was a country where money + could be raised, a subject-province to be bled by taxation. Archbishop + Hubert did his best to satisfy the royal demands; and though by his + inquisitions "England was reduced to poverty from one sea to the + other"—it is estimated that more than £1,000,000 was sent to + Richard in two years—the King was left unsatisfied. The nation + generally came to hate the Archbishop's taxation, the Church suffered by + his neglect, and he was finally compelled to resign the + justiciarship.</p> + + <p>It was the London rising, under FitzOsbert's leadership, that directly + caused Archbishop Hubert's retirement, and FitzOsbert is notable as the + first of the long line of agitators.</p> + + <p>The political importance of the capital was seen in the reigns of Cnut + and William the Conqueror. It was conspicuous on the arrival of Stephen + in 1135, and its influence on national politics lasted till the middle of + the nineteenth century.<a name="footnotetag33" + href="#footnote33"><sup>[33]</sup></a></p> + + <p>By its charter London had the right of raising taxes for the Crown in + its own way, and in 1196 the method proposed by the Corporation provoked + the outbreak. "When the aldermen assembled according to usage in full + hustings for the purpose of assessing the taxes, the rulers endeavoured + to spare their own purses and to levy the whole from the poor" + (Hoveden).</p> + + <p>The poorer citizens were voteless, and the plan of the aldermen was to + levy the tallages per head, and not in proportion to the property of the + inhabitants. This meant, practically, that the whole, except a very small + fraction of the sum to be raised, must be paid by the working people.</p> + + <p>Thereupon FitzOsbert protested, and the people rose in arms against + the demand.</p> + + <p>FitzOsbert was an old crusader, and he was something of a lawyer and a + powerful speaker. Not a rich man by any means, FitzOsbert was yet a + member of the city council when, "burning with zeal for justice and fair + play, he made himself the champion of the poor." To his enemies he was a + demagogue and disreputable—so Ralph de Diceto, Dean of St. Paul's + at that time, described him. To others of more popular sympathies he was + heroic and died a martyr's death. Across the centuries he is seen as "an + agitator"—the first English agitator, the first man to stand up + boldly against the oppression of the common people. This palpably unjust + taxation of the poor was intolerable to FitzOsbert.</p> + + <p>Fifteen thousand men banded themselves together in London under an + oath that they would stand by each other and by their leader; and + FitzOsbert, after a vain journey to Normandy to arouse Richard's + attention to the wrongs of his subjects, bade open defiance to the + justiciar and his tax-gatherers.</p> + + <p>For a time the Archbishop's men were powerless, but weakness crept in + amongst the citizens, and the aldermen were naturally on the side of + constituted authority. FitzOsbert's success meant a readjustment of + taxation quite unpalatable to the City Fathers.</p> + + <p>In the end FitzOsbert was deserted by all but a handful of his + followers and fled with them for sanctuary to the church of St. + Mary-le-Bow in Cheapside. Pursued by the officers of the law, FitzOsbert + climbed up into the tower of the church, and to fetch him down orders + were given to set the church on fire. This was done, and the only chance + of life that now remained for the rebels was to get out of the church and + cut their way through the ranks of their enemies.</p> + + <p>At the church door FitzOsbert was struck down, and his little company + quickly overpowered.</p> + + <p>Heavily chained, and badly wounded, FitzOsbert was carried off to the + Tower, to be tried and sentenced to a traitor's death without delay.</p> + + <p>A few days later—it was just before Easter—FitzOsbert was + stripped naked, and dragged at the tail of a horse over the rough streets + of London to Tyburn. He was dead before the place of execution was + reached, but the body, broken and mangled, was hung up in chains under + the gallows elm all the same; and nine of his companions were hanged with + him.</p> + + <p>The very people who had fallen away from their leader in the day of + his need now counted FitzOsbert for a saint, and pieces of his gibbet and + of the bloodstained earth underneath the tree were carried away and + treasured as sacred relics. It was alleged that miracles were performed + when these relics were touched—so wide was now the popular + reverence for the dead champion of the poor.</p> + + <p>Archbishop Hubert put a stop to this devotion by ordering sermons to + be preached on FitzOsbert's iniquities; and an alleged death-bed + confession, containing an account of many evil deeds, was published. It + is likely enough that an old crusader had plenty of sins to answer for, + but FitzOsbert's one crime before the law was that he had taught the + people of London to stand up and resist by force of arms the payment of + taxes—taxes levied with gross unfairness in popular judgment.</p> + + <p>The monks of Canterbury, to whom the church of St. Mary-le-Bow in + Cheapside belonged, had long had their own quarrels with Archbishop + Hubert, and on this firing of their church, and the violation of + sanctuary, they appealed to the King and the Pope—Innocent + III.—that Hubert should give up his political work and attend + exclusively to his duties as Archbishop. Both the Pope and the great + barons were against him, and in 1198 Archbishop Hubert was compelled to + resign the judiciarship.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">The Peasant Revolt and its Leaders, 1381</font></h4> + + <p>The great uprising of the peasants in 1381 was a very different matter + from the local insurrection made by FitzOsbert. Two centuries had passed, + and in those centuries the beginnings of representative government had + been set up and some recognition of the rights of the peasantry had been + admitted in the Great Charter.</p> + + <p>The Peasant Revolt was national. It was carefully prepared and + skilfully organised, and its leaders were men of power and + ability—men of character. It was not only a definite protest + against positive evils, but a vigorous attempt to create a new social + order—to substitute a social democracy for feudal government.<a + name="footnotetag34" href="#footnote34"><sup>[34]</sup></a></p> + + <p>The old feudal order had been widely upset by the Black Death in 1349, + and the further ravages of pestilence in 1361 and 1369. The heavy + mortality left many country districts bereft of labour, and landowners + were compelled to offer higher wages if agriculture was to go on. In vain + Parliament passed Statutes of Labourers to prevent the peasant from + securing an advance. These Acts of Parliament expressly forbade a rise in + wages; the landless man or woman was "to serve the employer who shall + require him to do so, and take only the wages which were accustomed to be + taken in the neighbourhood two years before the pestilence." The scarcity + of labour drove landowners to compete for the services of the labourer, + in spite of Parliament.</p> + + <p>Discontent was rife in those years of social change. The Statutes of + Labourers were ineffectual; but they galled the labourers and kept + serfdom alive. The tenants had their grievance because they were obliged + to give labour-service to their lords. Freehold yeomen, town workmen, and + shopkeepers were irritated by heavy taxation, and vexed by excessive + market tolls. All the materials were at hand for open rebellion, and + leaders were found as the days went by to kindle and direct the + revolt.</p> + + <p>John Ball, an itinerant priest, who came from St. Mary's, at York, and + then made Colchester the centre of his wanderings, spent twenty years + organising the revolt, and three times was excommunicated and imprisoned + by the Archbishop of Canterbury for teaching social "errors, schisms, and + scandals," but was in no wise contrite or cast down.</p> + + <p>Chief of Ball's fellow-agitators were John Wraw, in Suffolk, Jack + Straw, in Essex—both priests these—William Grindcobbe, in + Hertford, and Geoffrey Litster, in Norfolk. In Kent lived Wat Tyler, of + whom nothing is told till the revolt was actually afire, but who at once + was acknowledged leader and captain by the rebel hosts.</p> + + <p>From village to village went John Ball in the years that preceded the + rising, organising the peasants into clubs, and stirring the people with + revolutionary talk. It was the way of this vagrant priest to preach to + the people on village greens, and his discourses were all on the same + text—"In the beginning of the world there were no bondmen, all men + were created equal."<a name="footnotetag35" + href="#footnote35"><sup>[35]</sup></a> Inequalities of wealth and social + position were to be ended:</p> + + <p>"Good people, things will never go well in England, so long as goods + be not kept in common, and so long as there be villeins and gentlemen. By + what right are they whom men call lords greater folk than we? If all come + from the same father and mother, Adam and Eve, how can they say or prove + that they are better than we, if it be not that they make us gain for + them by our toil what they spend in their pride?</p> + + <p>"They are clothed in velvet, and are warm in their furs and ermines, + while we are covered in rags. They have wine and spices and fair bread, + and we oatcake and straw, and water to drink. They have leisure and fine + houses; we have pain and labour, the wind and rain in the fields. And yet + it is of us and of our toil that these men hold their state.</p> + + <p>"We are called slaves; and if we do not perform our services, we are + beaten, and we have not any sovereign to whom we can complain, or who + wishes to hear us and do us justice."</p> + + <p>The poet, William Langland, in "Piers Plowman," dwelt on the social + wrongs of the time; Ball was fond of quoting from Langland, and of + harping on a familiar couplet:</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"When Adam delved and Eve span,</p> + <p>Who was then the gentleman?"</p> + </div> + </div> + <p>Besides the sermons, some of the rhymed letters that John Ball sent + about the country have been preserved:</p> + +<blockquote class="b1"> + + <p>"John Ball, Priest of St. Mary's, greets well all manner of men, and + bids them in the name of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, to + stand together manfully in truth. Help truth and truth shall help + you.</p> + +</blockquote> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"John Ball greeteth you all,</p> + <p class="i2">And doth to understand he hath rung your bell.</p> + <p>Now with right and might, will and skill,</p> + <p class="i2">God speed every dell.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>John the Miller asketh help to turn his mill right:</p> + <p class="i2">He hath ground small, small:</p> + <p class="i2">The King's Son of Heaven will pay for it all.</p> + <p>Look thy mill go right, with its four sails dight.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>With right and with might, with skill and with will,</p> + <p class="i2">And let the post stand in steadfastness.</p> + <p>Let right help might, and skill go before will,</p> + <p class="i2">Then shall our mill go aright;</p> + <p>But if might go before right, and will go before skill,</p> + <p class="i2">Then is our mill mis-a-dight."</p> + </div> + </div> + <p>Sometimes it is under the signature of John Trueman that John Ball + writes:</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"Beware ere ye be woe;</p> + <p>Know your friend from your foe;</p> + <p>Take enough and cry "Ho!"</p> + <p>And do well and better and flee from sin,</p> + <p>And seek out peace and dwell therein—</p> + <p class="i2">So biddeth John Trueman and all his fellows."</p> + </div> + </div> + <p>A more definite note was struck when it seemed to Ball and his + colleagues that the time was ripe for revolution, and the word was given + that appeal must be made to the boy-king—Richard was only eleven + years old when he came to the throne in 1377.</p> + + <p>"Let us go to the King, and remonstrate with him, telling him we must + have it otherwise, or we ourselves shall find the remedy. He is young. If + we wait on him in a body, all those who come under the name of serf, or + are held in bondage, will follow us in the hope of being free. When the + King shall see us we shall obtain a favourable answer, or we must then + ourselves seek to amend our condition."</p> + + <p>In another letter John Ball greets John Nameless, John the Miller, and + John Carter, and bids them stand together in God's name, and beware of + guile: he bids Piers Plowman "go to his work and chastise well Hob the + Robber (Sir Robert Hales, the King's Treasurer); and take with you John + Trueman and all his fellows, and look that you choose one head and no + more."</p> + + <p>These letters and the preaching were accepted by willing minds. John + Ball was in prison—in the jail of Archbishop Sudbury at + Maidstone—in the spring of 1381, but the peasants were organised + and ready to revolt. If Wat Tyler is the recognised leader of the rebel + forces—"the one head"—John Ball's was the work of preparing + the uprising. The vagrant priest had rung his bell to some purpose. In + every county, from Somerset to York, the peasants flocked together, "some + armed with clubs, rusty swords, axes, with old bows reddened by the smoke + of the chimney corner, and odd arrows with only one feather."</p> + + <p>At Whitsuntide, early in June, 1381, the great uprising + began—the Hurling time of the peasants—long to be remembered + with horror by the governing classes. A badly ordered poll-tax was the + match that kindled the fire.</p> + + <p>The poll-tax was first levied, in 1377, on all over fourteen years of + age. Two years later it was graduated, every man and woman of the working + class being rated at 4d., and dukes and archbishops at £6 13s. 4d. More + money was still wanted by the Government, and early in 1381, John of + Gaunt, the chief man in the realm, called Parliament together at + Northampton, and demanded £160,000. Parliament agreed that £100,000 + should be raised, and the clergy—owning a third of the + land—promised £60,000. But the only way of raising the £100,000 + that the Government could think of was by another poll-tax, and this time + everybody over fifteen was required to pay 1s. Of course, the thing was + impossible. In many parishes the mere returns of population were not + filled in; numbers evaded payment—which spelt ruin—by leaving + their homes. £22,000 was all that came to hand.</p> + + <p>Then a man named John Legge came to the assistance of the Government, + and was appointed chief commissioner, and empowered to collect the + tax.</p> + + <p>The methods of Legge and his assistants provoked hostility, and when + the villagers of Fobbing, Corringham, and Stanford-le-Hope, in Essex, + were summoned to meet the commissioner at Brentwood, their reply was to + kill the collectors.</p> + + <p>The Government answered this by sending down Chief Justice Belknap to + punish the offenders, but the people drove the chief justice out of the + place, and Belknap was glad to escape with his life.</p> + + <p>This was on Whit-Sunday, June 2nd, and two days later the revolt had + spread to Kent; Gravesend and Dartford were in tumult. In one place Sir + Simon Burley, a friend of Richard II., seized a workman, claiming him as + a bondservant, and refusing to let him go under a fine of £300; while at + Dartford a tax-collector had made trouble by gross indecency to the wife + and daughter of one John Tyler.<a name="footnotetag36" + href="#footnote36"><sup>[36]</sup></a></p> + + <p>Thereupon this John Tyler, "being at work in the same town tyling of + an house, when he heard thereof, caught his lathing staff in his hand, + and ran reaking home; where, reasoning with the collector, who made him + so bold, the collector answered with stout words, and strake at the + tyler; whereupon the tyler, avoiding the blow, smote the collector with + his lathing staff, so that the brains flew out of his head. Wherethrough + great noise arose in the streets, and the poor people being glad, + everyone prepared to support the said John Tyler."</p> + + <p>Now, with the fire of revolt in swift blaze, it was for the men of + Kent to see that it burned under some direction. Authority and discipline + were essential if the rising was not to become mob rule or mere anarchy, + and if positive and intolerable wrongs were to find remedies.</p> + + <p>At Maidstone, on June 7th—after Rochester Castle had been + stormed, its prisoners set free and Sir John Newton its governor placed + in safe custody—Wat Tyler was chosen captain of the rebel + hosts.</p> + + <p>History tells us nothing of the antecedents of this remarkable man. + For eight days, and eight days only, he plays his part on the stage of + national events: commands with authority a vast concourse of men; meets + the King face to face, and wrests from sovereignty great promises of + reform; orders the execution of the chief ministers of the Crown, and + then, in what seems to be the hour of triumph, is struck to the ground, + and goes to his death.</p> + + <p>Under the accredited leadership of Wat Tyler the revolt at once took + form. Five days were spent in Kent before the peasant army marched on + London. The manor houses were attacked, and all rent rolls, legal + documents, lists of tenants and serfs destroyed. The rising was not a + ferocious massacre like the rising of the Jacquerie in France; there was + no general massacre of landlords, or reign of terror. The lawyers who + managed the landowners' estates were the enemy, and against + them—against the instruments of landlord tyranny—was the + anger of the peasants directed. In the same way John of Gaunt, and not + the youthful King, was recognised as the evil influence in government; + and while a vow was taken by the men of Kent that no man named "John" + should be King of England, the popular cry was "King Richard and the + Commons," and all who joined in this were accounted friends of the + insurgent populace.</p> + + <p>Blackheath was reached on the evening of June 12th, and early the + following morning, which was Corpus Christi Day, John Ball—released + by a thousand hands from his prison at Maidstone—preached to the + multitude on the work before them:</p> + + <p>"Now is the opportunity given to Englishmen, if they do but choose to + take it, of casting off the yoke they have borne so long, of winning the + freedom they have always desired. Wherefore, let us take good courage and + behave like the wise husbandman of scripture, who gathered the wheat into + his barn, but uprooted and burned the tares that had half-choked the good + grain. The tares of England are her oppressive rulers, and the time of + harvest has come. Ours it is to pluck up these tares and make away with + them all—the wicked lords, the unjust judges, the + lawyers—every man, indeed, who is dangerous to the common good. + Then shall we all have peace in our time and security for the future. For + when the great ones have been rooted up and cast away, all will enjoy + equal freedom and nobility, rank and power shall we have in common."</p> + + <p>Thirty-thousand men—yeomen, craftsmen, villeins, and peasants, + were at Blackheath, and these were soon joined by thousands more from + Surrey.</p> + + <p>John Wraw and Grindcobbe came to consult with Wat Tyler, and then + returned to Suffolk and Hertford to announce that the hour had come to + strike.</p> + + <p>The Marshalsea and King's Bench prisons, and the houses of ill-fame + that clustered round London Bridge, were destroyed before Wat Tyler led + his army into the city. An attempt to meet the King in conference was + frustrated by the royal counsellors. Richard came down in the royal barge + as far as Rotherhithe, but was dissuaded by Sir Robert Hales, and the + Earls of Suffolk, Salisbury, and Warwick, from "holding speech with the + shoeless ruffians."</p> + + <p>Richard rowed back swiftly to the Tower, and Tyler and his army swept + into London. The city was in the hands of the rebel captain, but the + citizens welcomed the invaders, and offered bread and ale when Tyler + proclaimed that death would be the instant punishment for theft.</p> + + <p>John of Gaunt's palace at the Savoy, on the river strand, was the + first place to be burnt; but Henry, Earl of Derby, John of Gaunt's son + (eighteen years later to reign as Henry IV., in place of Richard), was + allowed to pass out uninjured, and a wretched man caught in the act of + stealing off with a silver cup was promptly executed.</p> + + <p>The Savoy destroyed, the Temple—a hive of lawyers—was the + next to be burnt, and before nightfall the Fleet Prison and Newgate had + been demolished.</p> + + <p>Again Tyler demanded conference with the King, and Richard, lying in + the Tower with his counsellors, unable to prevent the work of conference, + boldly decided to come out and meet the rebels. Mile End was appointed + for the conference, and to Mile End Richard came with a very modest + retinue. The King was only fifteen, but he was the son of the Black + Prince, and he had both courage and cunning. He was fully aware that the + people did not lay on him responsibility for the sins of the Government. + "If we measure intellectual power by the greatest exertion it ever + displays, rather than by its average results, Richard II. was a man of + considerable talents. He possessed along with much dissimulation a + decisive promptitude in seizing the critical moment for action."<a + name="footnotetag37" href="#footnote37"><sup>[37]</sup></a></p> + + <p>At Mile End Tyler stated the grievances of the people. But first he + asked that all traitors should be put to death, and to this the King + agreed.</p> + + <p>Four positive articles of reform were put forward, and were at once + assented to by the King:—</p> + + <p>1. A free and general pardon to all concerned in the rising.</p> + + <p>2. The total abolition of all villeinage (forced labour) and + serfdom.</p> + + <p>3. An end to all tolls and market dues—"freedom to buy and sell + in all cities, burghs, mercantile towns, and other places within our + kingdom of England."</p> + + <p>4. All customary tenants to become leaseholders at a fixed rental of + fourpence an acre for ever.</p> + + <p>That all doubts might be removed, thirty clerks were set to work on + the spot to draw up charters of manumission, and banners were presented + to each county. At nightfall thousands returned home convinced that the + old order was ended, and that the Royal charters were genuine assurances + of freedom.</p> + + <p>But Tyler and the bulk of the men of Kent and Surrey remained in the + city. It seemed to Wat Tyler that better terms still were to be wrung + from the King. It looked that night as though the insurrection had + triumphed completely. Not only were the charters signed and the royal + promises given, but several in high office, whom Tyler held to be + "traitors," had gone to their doom. Sir Robert Hales, the Treasurer, + Archbishop Sudbury, the Chancellor—a gentle and kindly old man, + "lenient to heretics"—John Legge, the hated poll-tax commissioner, + with Appleton, John of Gaunt's chaplain, and Richard Lyons, a thoroughly + corrupt contractor of Edward III.'s reign, were all dragged out of the + Tower and beheaded on Tower Hill on Friday, June 15th.</p> + + <p>On Tyler's request for another conference with Richard on the + following day, the King saw he had no choice but to yield. For the second + time Wat Tyler and Richard met face to face. The conference was held at + Smithfield, in the square outside St. Bartholomew's Priory. The King and + two hundred retainers, with Walworth the mayor, were on the east side of + the square. Tyler and his army were on the west side, opposite the + Priory.</p> + + <p>In the open space Tyler, mounted on a little horse, presented his + demands; more sweeping were the reforms now asked for than those of the + previous day.</p> + + <p>"Let no law but the law of Winchester<a name="footnotetag38" + href="#footnote38"><sup>[38]</sup></a> prevail throughout the land, and + let no man be made an outlaw by the decree of judges and lawyers. Grant + also that no lord shall henceforth exercise lordship over the commons; + and since we are oppressed by so vast a horde of bishops and clerks, let + there be but one bishop in England; and let the property and goods of + Holy Church be divided fairly according to the needs of the people in + each parish, after in justice making suitable provision for the present + clergy and monks. Finally, let there be no more villeins in England, but + grant us all to be free and of one condition."</p> + + <p>Richard answered that he promised readily all that was asked, "if only + it be consistent with the regality of my Crown." He then bade the commons + return home, since their requests had been granted.</p> + + <p>Nobles and counsellors stood in sullen and silent anger at the King's + words, but were powerless to act. Tyler, conscious of victory, called for + a draught, and when his attendant brought him a mighty tankard of ale, + the rebel leader drank good-humouredly to "King Richard and the Commons." + A knight in the royal service, a "valet of Kent," was heard to mutter + that Wat Tyler was the greatest thief and robber in all the county, and + Tyler caught the abusive words, drew his dagger, and made for the + man.</p> + + <p>Mayor Walworth, as angry as the nobles at the King's surrender, + shouted that he would arrest all who drew weapons in the King's presence; + and on Tyler striking at him impatiently, the Mayor drew a cutlass and + slashed back, wounding Tyler in the neck so that he fell from his horse. + Before he could recover a footing, two knights plunged their swords into + him, and Tyler, mortally wounded, could only scramble on to his little + horse, ride a yard or two, call on the commons to avenge him, and then + drop—a dead man.<a name="footnotetag39" + href="#footnote39"><sup>[39]</sup></a></p> + + <p>And with Wat Tyler's death the whole rebellion collapsed. Confusion + fell upon the people at Smithfield. Some were for immediate attack, but + when Richard, riding out into the middle of the square, claimed that he + and not Tyler was their King, and bade them follow him into the fields + towards Islington, the great mass, convinced that Richard was honestly + their friend, obeyed. At nightfall they were scattered.</p> + + <p>Wat Tyler's body was taken into the Priory, and his head placed on + London Bridge.</p> + + <p>Walworth hastily gathered troops together, and the leader of the + rebels being dead, the nobles recovered their courage.</p> + + <p>The rising was over; the people without leaders were as sheep for the + slaughter. Jack Straw was taken in London and hanged without the + formality of a trial; and on June 22nd Tresilian, the new chief justice, + went on a special assize to try the rebels, and "showed mercy to none and + made great havock." The King's charters and promises were declared null + and void when Parliament met, and some hundreds of peasants were hanged + in various parts of the country.</p> + + <p>John Ball and Grindcobbe were hanged at St. Albans on July 15th, John + Wraw and Geoffrey Litster suffered the same fate.</p> + + <p>All that Wat Tyler and the peasants had striven for was lost; but the + rising was not quite in vain. For one thing, the poll-tax was stopped, + and the end of villeinage was hastened.</p> + + <p>The great uprising was the first serious demonstration of the English + people for personal liberty. "It taught the King's officers and gentle + folks that they must treat the peasants like men if they wished them to + behave quietly, and it led most landlords to set free their bondsmen, and + to take fixed money payments instead of uncertain services from their + customary tenants, so that in a hundred years' time there were very few + bondsmen left in England."<a name="footnotetag40" + href="#footnote40"><sup>[40]</sup></a></p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Jack Cade, Captain of Kent, 1450</font></h4> + + <p>To understand the character and importance of the rising of the men of + Kent under Jack Cade in 1450, the first thing to be done is to clear the + mind of Shakespeare's travesty in <i>King Henry VI.</i>, Part 2. In the + play the name of Cade has been handed down in obloquy, and all that he + and his followers aimed at caricatured out of recognition. The part that + Jack Cade really played in national affairs has no likeness to the low + comedy performance imagined by Shakespeare.</p> + + <p>It was a popular rising in 1450, but it was not a peasant revolt. Men + of substance in the county rallied to Cade's banner, and in many parishes + in Kent the village constable was employed to enrol willing recruits in + the army of disaffection.<a name="footnotetag41" + href="#footnote41"><sup>[41]</sup></a></p> + + <p>The peasant revolt was at bottom a social movement, fostered and + fashioned by preachers of a social democracy. Cade's rising was provoked + by misgovernment and directed at political reform. It was far less + revolutionary in purpose than the revolt that preceded it, or the rising + under Ket a hundred years later.</p> + + <p>The discontent was general when Cade encamped on Blackheath with the + commons of Kent at the end of May, 1450. Suffolk, the best hated of Henry + VI.'s ministers, had already been put to death by the sailors of Dover, + and Lord Say-and-Sele, the Treasurer, was in the Tower under impeachment. + Ayscough, Bishop of Salisbury, another Minister, was hanged by his + infuriated flock in Wiltshire, and Bishop Moleyns, of Chichester, Keeper + of the Privy Seal, was executed in Portsmouth by a mob of sailors. Piracy + prevailed unchecked in the English Channel, and the highways inland were + haunted by robbers—soldiers back from France and broken in the + wars.</p> + + <p>The ablest statesman of the day, the Duke of York, was banished from + the royal council, and there was a wide feeling that an improvement in + government was impossible until York was recalled.</p> + + <p>Whether Cade, who was known popularly as "Mortimer," was related to + the Duke of York, or was merely a country landowner, can never be + decided. The charges made against him after his death were not supported + by a shred of evidence, but it was necessary then for the Government to + blacken the character of the Captain of Kent for the utter discouragement + of his followers. All we <i>know</i> of Cade is that by the Act of + Attainder he must have been a man of some property in + Surrey—probably a squire or yeoman.</p> + + <p>The army that encamped on Blackheath numbered over 40,000, and + included squires, yeomen, county gentlemen, and at least two notable + ecclesiastics from Sussex, the Abbot of Battle and the Prior of Lewes. + The testimony to Cade's character is that he was the unquestioned and + warmly respected leader of the host. The Cade depicted by his + enemies—a dissolute, disreputable ruffian—was not the kind of + man to have had authority as a chosen captain over country gentlemen and + clerical landowners in the fifteenth century.</p> + + <p>The "Complaints" of the commons of Kent, drawn up at Blackheath and + forwarded to the King and his Parliament, then sitting at Westminster, + called attention in fifteen articles to the evils that afflicted the + land. These articles dealt with a royal threat to lay waste Kent in + revenge for the death of the Duke of Suffolk; the wasting of the royal + revenue raised by heavy taxation; the banishment of the Duke of + York—"to make room for unworthy ministers who would not do justice + by law, but demanded bribes and gifts"; purveyance of goods for the royal + household without payment; arrest and imprisonment on false charges of + treason by persons whose goods and lands were subsequently seized by the + King's servants, who then "either compassed their deaths or kept them in + prison while they got possession of their property by royal grant"; + interference by "the great rulers of the land" with the old right of free + election of knights of the shire; the mismanagement of the war in France. + A certain number of purely local grievances, chiefly concerned with the + maladministration of justice, were also included in the "Complaints," and + five "Requests"—including the abolition of the Statutes of + Labourers—were added.</p> + + <p>Henry and his counsellors dismissed these "Complaints" with contempt. + "Such proud rebels," it was said, "should rather be suppressed and tamed + with violence and force than with fair words or amicable answer." But + when the royal troops moved into Kent to disperse the rising, Cade's army + cut them to pieces at Sevenoaks. Henry returned to London; his nobles + rode away to their country houses; and after a fruitless attempt at + negotiations by the Duke of Buckingham and the Archbishop of + Canterbury,<a name="footnotetag42" href="#footnote42"><sup>[42]</sup></a> + the King himself fled to Kenilworth—leaving London at the mercy of + the Captain of Kent.</p> + + <p>On July 2nd Cade crossed London Bridge on horseback, followed by all + his army. The Corporation had already decided to offer no opposition to + his entry, and one of its members, Thomas Cocke, of the Drapers' + Company—later sheriff and M.P.—had gone freely between the + camp at Blackheath and the city, acting as mutual friend to the rebels + and the citizens. All that Cade required was that the foreign merchants + in London should furnish him with a certain number of arms and horses, + "and 1,000 marks of ready money"; and this was done. "So that it was + found that the Captain and Kentishmen at their being in the city did no + hurt to any stranger."<a name="footnotetag43" + href="#footnote43"><sup>[43]</sup></a></p> + + <p>On the old London stone, in Cannon Street, Cade laid his sword, in the + presence of the Mayor and a great multitude of people, and declared + proudly: "Now is Mortimer lord of this city." Then at nightfall he went + back to his headquarters at the White Hart Inn in Southwark.</p> + + <p>The following day Lord Say-and-Sele, and his son-in-law, Crowmer, + Sheriff of Kent, were removed by Cade's orders from the Tower to the + Guildhall, tried for "divers treasons" and "certain extortions," and + quickly beheaded. Popular hatred, not content with this, placed the heads + of the fallen minister and his son-in-law on poles, made them kiss in + horrible embrace, and then bore them off in triumph to London Bridge.</p> + + <p>A third man, one John Bailey, was also hanged for being a necromancer; + and as Cade had promised death to all in his army convicted of theft, it + fell out that certain "lawless men" paid the penalty for disobedience, + and were hanged in Southwark—where the main body of the army + lay.</p> + + <p>Cade's difficulties began directly after Lord Say-and-Sele's + execution. London assented willingly to the death of an unpopular + statesman, but had no mind to provision an army of 50,000 men, and, + indeed, had no liking for the proximity of such a host. Plunder being + forbidden, and strict discipline the rule, the urgent question for the + Captain of Kent was how the army was to be maintained.</p> + + <p>Getting no voluntary help from the city. Cade decided that he must + help himself. He supped with a worthy citizen named Curtis in Tower + Street on July 4th, and insisted before he left that Curtis must + contribute money for the support of the Kentish men. Curtis + complied—how much he gave we know not—but he resented + bitterly the demand, and he told the tale of his wrongs to his + fellow-merchants.<a name="footnotetag44" + href="#footnote44"><sup>[44]</sup></a> The result was that while Cade + slept in peace as usual at the White Hart, the Mayor and Corporation took + counsel with Lord Scales, the Governor of the Tower, and resolved that at + all costs the Captain of Kent and his forces must be kept out of the + city. After the treatment of Curtis the fear was that disorder and + pillage might become common.</p> + + <p>On the evening of Sunday, July 5th, and all through the night battle + waged hotly on London Bridge, which had been seized and fortified before + Cade was awake, and by the morning the rebels, unsuccessful in their + attack, were glad to agree to a hasty truce.</p> + + <p>The truce gave opportunity to Cardinal Kemp, Archbishop of York, the + King's Chancellor, to suggest a lasting peace to Cade. Messengers were + sent speedily from the Tower, where Kemp, with Archbishop Stafford, of + Canterbury, had stayed in safety, to the White Hart, urging a conference + "to the end that the civil commotions and disturbances might cease and + tranquillity be restored."</p> + + <p>Cade consented, and when the two Archbishops, with William Waynfleet, + Bishop of Winchester, met the Captain of Kent in the Church of St. + Margaret, Southwark, and promised that Parliament should give + consideration to the "Complaints" and "Requests" of the commons, and that + a full pardon should be given to all who would straightway return home, + the rising was at an end.</p> + + <p>Cade hesitated, and asked for the endorsement of the pardons by + Parliament; but this was plainly impossible because Parliament was not + sitting. The bulk of the commons were satisfied with their pardons, and + with the promise that Parliament would attend to their grievances. There + was nothing to be gained, it seemed, by remaining in arms. On July 8th, + the rebel army had broken up, taking the road back to the towns and + villages, farms and cottages in Kent, Sussex, and Surrey. Cade, with a + small band of followers, retreated to Rochester, and attempted without + success, the capture of Queenborough Castle. On the news that the commons + had dispersed from Southwark, the Government at once took the offensive. + Alexander Iden was appointed Sheriff of Kent, and, marrying Crowmer's + widow, subsequently gained considerable profit. Within a week John Cade + was proclaimed by the King's writ a false traitor throughout the + countryside, and Sheriff Iden was in eager pursuit—for a reward of + 1,000 marks awaited the person who should take Cade, alive or dead.</p> + + <p>Near Heathfield, in Sussex, Cade, broken and famished, was found by + Iden, and fought his last fight on July 13th, preferring to die sword in + hand than to perish by the hangman. He fell before the overwhelming odds + of the sheriff and his troops, and the body was immediately sent off to + London for identification.</p> + + <p>The landlady of the White Hart proved the identity of the dead + captain, and all that remained was to stick the head on London Bridge, + and dispatch the quartered body to Blackheath, Norwich, Salisbury and + Gloucester for public exhibition.</p> + + <p>Iden got the 1,000 marks reward and, in addition, the governorship of + Rochester Castle at a salary of £36 a year.</p> + + <p>By special Act of Attainder all Cade's goods, lands and tenements were + made forfeit to the Crown, and statements were published for the + discrediting of Cade's life.</p> + + <p>No allusion was made in Parliament to the "Complaints" and "Requests," + and, in spite of Cardinal Kemp's pardons, a number of men were hanged at + Canterbury and Rochester for their share in the rising, when Henry VI. + and his justices visited Kent in January, 1451.</p> + + <p>The revolt failed to amend the wretched misrule. It remained for civil + war to drive Henry VI. from the throne, and make Edward IV. of York his + successor.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">The Norfolk Rising under Robert Ket, 1549</font></h4> + + <p>A century after the rising of the commons of Kent came the last great + popular rebellion—the Norfolk Rising, led by Ket. This insurrection + was agrarian and social, concerned neither with the fierce theological + differences of the time, nor with the political rivalries of Protector + Somerset and his enemies in Edward VI.'s Council.</p> + + <p>At the beginning of the sixteenth century England was in the main a + nation of small farmers, but radical changes were taking place, and these + changes meant ruin to thousands of yeomen and peasants.</p> + + <p>The enclosure, by many large landowners, of the fields which for ages + past had been cultivated by the country people, the turning of arable + land into pasture, were the main causes of the distress.<a + name="footnotetag45" href="#footnote45"><sup>[45]</sup></a> Whole + parishes were evicted in some places and dwelling houses destroyed, and + contemporary writers are full of the miseries caused by these + clearances.</p> + + <p>Acts of Parliament were passed in 1489 and 1515, prohibiting the + "pulling down of towns," and ordering the reversion of pasture lands to + tillage, but the legislation was ignored. Sir Thomas More, in his + "Utopia" (1516), described very vividly what the enclosures were doing to + rural England; and a royal commission, appointed by Cardinal Wolsey, + reported in the following year that more than 36,000 acres had been + enclosed in seven Midland counties. In some cases, waste lands only were + enclosed, but landowners were ordered to make restitution within forty + days where small occupiers had been dispossessed. Royal commissions and + royal proclamations were no more effective than Acts of Parliament. Bad + harvests drove the Norfolk peasantry to riot for food in 1527 and 1529. + The dissolution of the monasteries in 1536 and 1539 abolished a great + source of charity for the needy, and increased the social disorder. + Finally, in 1547, came the confiscation by the Crown of the property of + the guilds and brotherhoods, and the result of this enactment can only be + realised by supposing the funds of friendly societies, trade unions, and + co-operative societies taken by Government to-day without + compensation.</p> + + <p>All that Parliament would do in the face of the starvation and + unemployment that brooded over many parts of England, was to pass penal + legislation for the homeless and workless—so that it seemed to many + that Government had got rid of Papal authority only to bring back + slavery. The agrarian misery, the violent changes in the order of church + services and social customs, the confiscation of the funds of the guilds, + and the wanton spoiling of the parish churches<a name="footnotetag46" + href="#footnote46"><sup>[46]</sup></a>—all these things drove the + people to revolt.</p> + + <p>Early in 1549 the men of Devon and Cornwall took up arms for "the old + religion," and were hanged by scores. In Norfolk that same year the + rising under Ket was social, and unconcerned with religion. Lesser + agrarian disturbances took place in Somerset, Lincoln, Essex, Kent, + Oxford, Wilts, and Buckingham. But there was no cohesion amongst the + insurgents, and no organisation of the peasants such as England had seen + under John Ball and his companion in 1381.</p> + + <p>In 1548 Somerset, the Lord Protector, made an honest attempt to check + the rapacity of the landowners, but his proclamation and royal commission + were no more successful than Wolsey's had been, and only earned for the + Protector the hatred of the landowners.</p> + + <p>The Norfolk Rising was the one strong movement to turn the current + that was sweeping the peasants into destitution. It failed, as all + popular insurrection in England has failed, and it brought its leaders to + the gallows; but for six weeks hope lifted its head in the rebel camp + outside Norwich, and many believed that oppression and misery were to + end.</p> + + <p>The rising began at Attleborough, on June 20th, when the people pulled + down the fences and hedges set up round the common fields. On July 7th, + at the annual feast in honour of St. Thomas of Canterbury, at Wymondham, + a mighty concourse of people broke down the fences at Hetherset, and then + appealed to Robert Ket and his brother to help them.</p> + + <p>Both the Kets were well-known locally. They were men of old family, + craftsmen, and landowners. Robert was a tanner by trade, William a + butcher. Three manors—valued at 1,000 marks, with a yearly income + of £50—belonged to Robert Ket: church lands mostly, leased from the + Earl of Warwick.</p> + + <p>Ket saw that only under leadership and guidance could the revolt + become a revolution, and he threw himself into the cause of his poorer + neighbours with whole-hearted fervour. "I am ready," he said, "and will + be ready at all times to do whatever, not only to repress, but to subdue + the power of great men. Whatsoever lands I have enclosed shall again be + made common unto ye and all men, and my own hands shall first perform it. + You shall have me, if you will, not only as a companion, but as a + captain; and in the doing of the so great a work before us, not only as a + fellow, but for a leader, author, and principal."</p> + + <p>Ket's leadership was at once acclaimed with enthusiasm by the thousand + men who formed the rebel band at the beginning of the rising. The news + spread quickly that Ket was leading an army to Norwich, and on July 10th, + when a camp was made at Eaton Wood, every hour brought fresh recruits. It + is clear from Ket's speeches, and from "The Rebels' Complaint," issued by + him at this time, that the aim of the leaders of the Norfolk Rising was + not merely to stop the enclosures, but to end the ascendancy of the + landlord class for all time, and to set up a social democracy.</p> + + <p>Ket's address at Eaton Wood was revolutionary:</p> + + <p>"Now are ye overtopped and trodden down by gentlemen, and put out of + possibility ever to recover foot. Rivers of riches run into the coffers + of your landlords, while you are par'd to the quick, and fed upon pease + and oats like beasts. You are fleeced by these landlords for their + private benefit, and as well kept under by the public burdens of State, + wherein while the richer sort favour themselves, ye are gnawn to the very + bones. Your tyrannous masters often implead, arrest, and cast you into + prison, so that they may the more terrify and torture you in your minds, + and wind your necks more surely under their arms.... Harmless counsels + are fit for tame fools; for you who have already stirred, there is no + hope but in adventuring boldly."</p> + + <p>"The Rebels' Complaint" is equally definite and outspoken. It + rehearsed the wrongs of a landless peasantry, and called on the people to + end these wrongs by open rebellion. The note of social equality is struck + by Ket throughout the rising.</p> + + <p>"The present condition of possessing land seemeth miserable and + slavish—holding it all at the pleasure of great men; not freely, + but by prescription, and, as it were, at the will and pleasure of the + lord. For as soon as any man offend any of these gorgeous gentlemen, he + is put out, deprived, and thrust from all his goods.</p> + + <p>"The common pastures left by our predecessors for our relief and our + children are taken away.</p> + + <p>"The lands which in the memory of our fathers were common, those are + ditched and hedged in and made several; the pastures are enclosed, and we + shut out.</p> + + <p>"We can no longer bear so much, so great, and so cruel injury; neither + can we with quiet minds behold so great covetousness, excess, and pride + of the nobility. We will rather take arms, and mix Heaven and earth + together, than endure so great cruelty.</p> + + <p>"Nature hath provided for us, as well as for them; hath given us a + body and a soul, and hath not envied us other things. While we have the + same form, and the same condition of birth together with them, why should + they have a life so unlike unto ours, and differ so far from us in + calling?</p> + + <p>"We see that things have now come to extremities, and we will prove + the extremity. We will rend down hedges, fill up ditches, and make a way + for every man into the common pasture. Finally, we will lay all even with + the ground, which they, no less wickedly than cruelly and covetously, + have enclosed.</p> + + <p>"We desire liberty and an indifferent (or equal) use of all things. + This will we have. Otherwise these tumults and our lives shall only be + ended together."</p> + + <p>But though the method was revolution and the goal social democracy, + Ket was no anarchist. He proved himself a strong, capable leader, able to + enforce discipline and maintain law and order in the rebel camp. And with + all his passionate hatred against the rule of the landlord, Ket would + allow neither massacre nor murder. There is no evidence that the life of + a single landowner was taken while the rising lasted, though many were + brought captive to Ket's judgment seat.</p> + + <p>Ket was equally averse from civil war between the citizens of Norwich + and the peasants. When the Mayor of Norwich, Thomas Cod, refused to allow + Ket's army to cross the city on its way to Mousehold Heath, where the + permanent camp was to be made, Ket simply led his forces round by + Hailsdon and Drayton, and so reached Mousehold on July 12th without + bloodshed. A week later, and 20,000 was the number enrolled under the + banner of revolt—for the publication of "The Rebels' Complaint" and + the ringing of bells and firing of beacons roused all the countryside to + action.</p> + + <p>On Mousehold Heath, Robert Ket, with his brother William, gave + directions and administered justice under a great tree, called the Oak of + Reformation. Mayor Cod, and two other respected Norwich citizens, + Aldrich, an alderman, and Watson, a preacher, joined Ket's council, + thinking their influence might restrain the rebels from worse doings.</p> + + <p>Twenty-nine "Requests and Demands," signed by Ket, Cod, and Aldrich, + were dispatched to the King from Mousehold, and this document gave in + full the grievances of the rebels. The chief demands were the cessation + of enclosures, the enactment of fair rents, the restoration of common + fishing rights, the appointment of resident clergymen to preach and + instruct the children, and the free election or appointment of local + "commissioners" for the enforcement of the laws. There was also a request + "that all bond men may be made free, for God made all free with His + precious bloodshedding."</p> + + <p>The only answer to the "Requests and Demands" was the arrival of a + herald with a promise that Parliament would meet in October to consider + the grievances, if the people would in the meantime quietly return to + their homes.</p> + + <p>But this Ket would by no means agree to, and for the next few weeks + his authority was supreme in that part of the country. He established a + rough constitution for the prevention of mere disorder, two men being + chosen by their fellows from the various hundreds of the eastern half of + the county. A royal messenger, bearing commissions of the peace to + certain country gentlemen, falling into the hands of Ket, was relieved of + his documents and dismissed. Ket then put in these commissions the names + of men who had joined the rising, and declared them magistrates with + authority to check all disobedience to orders.</p> + + <p>To feed the army at Mousehold, men were sent out with a warrant from + Ket for obtaining cattle and corn from the country houses, and "to beware + of robbing, spoiling, and other evil demeanours." No violence or injury + was to be done to "any honest or poor man." Contributions came in from + the smaller yeomen "with much private good-will," but the landowners + generally were stricken with panic, and let the rebels do what they + liked. Those who could not escape by flight were, for the most part, + brought captive to the Oak of Reformation, and thence sent to the prisons + in Norwich and St. Leonard's Hill.</p> + + <p>Relations between Ket and the Norwich authorities soon became strained + to breaking point. Mayor Cod was shocked at the imprisonment of county + gentlemen, and refused permission for Ket's troops to pass through the + city on their foraging expeditions. Citizens and rebels were in conflict + on July 21st, but "for lack of powder and want of skill in the gunners" + few lives were lost, and Norwich was in the hands of Ket the following + day. No reprisals followed; but a week later came William Parr, Marquis + of Northampton—Henry VIII.'s brother-in-law—with 1,500 + Italian mercenaries and a body of country squires, to destroy the rebels. + Northampton's forces were routed utterly, and Lord Sheffield was slain, + and many houses and gates were burnt in the city.</p> + + <p>Then for three weeks longer Robert Ket remained in power, still hoping + against hope that some attention would be given by the Government to his + "Requests and Demands." Protector Somerset, beset by his own + difficulties, could do nothing for rebellious peasants, could not + countenance in any way an armed revolt, however great the miseries that + provoked insurrection. The Earl of Warwick was dispatched with 14,000 + troops to end the rebellion, and arrived on August 24th. For two days the + issue seemed uncertain—half the city only was in Warwick's hands. + The arrival of 1,400 mercenaries—"lanzknechts," Germans + mostly—and a fatal decision of the rebels to leave their vantage + ground at Mousehold Heath and do battle in the open valley that stretched + towards the city, gave complete victory to Warwick.</p> + + <p>The peasants poured into the meadows beyond Magdalen and Pockthorpe + gates, and were cut to pieces by the professional soldiers.</p> + + <p>When all seemed over Ket galloped away to the north, but was taken, + worn out, at the village of Swannington, eight miles from Norwich.</p> + + <p>More than 400 peasants were hanged by Warwick's orders, and their + bodies left to swing on Mousehold and in the city. Robert Ket and William + Ket were sent to London, and after being tried and condemned for high + treason, were returned to Norwich in December for execution. Robert Ket + was hanged in chains from Norwich Castle, and William suffered in similar + fashion from the parish church at Wymondham—to remind all people of + the fate that befall those who venture, unsuccessfully, to take up arms + against the government in power.</p> + + <p>So the Norfolk Rising ended, and with it ended all serious popular + insurrection in England. Riots and mob violence have been seen even to + our own time, but no great, well-organised movement to overthrow + authority and establish a social democracy by force of arms has been + attempted since 1549.</p> + + <p>The characters of Robert Ket and his brother have been vindicated by + time, and the rebel leader is now recognised as a disinterested, capable, + high-minded man. Ket took what seemed to him the only possible course to + avert the doom of a ruined peasantry, and failed. But his courage and + humaneness are beyond question.<a name="footnotetag47" + href="#footnote47"><sup>[47]</sup></a></p> + + <p>The enclosures did not end with the sixteenth century, and for another + one hundred years complaints are heard of the steady depopulation of + rural England. In the eighteenth century came the second great series of + enclosures—the enclosing of the commons and waste spaces, by Acts + of Parliament. Between 1710 and 1867 no less than 7,660,439 acres were + thus enclosed.</p> + + <p>To-day the questions of land tenure and land ownership are conspicuous + items in the discussion of the whole social question, for the relations + of a people to its land are of very first importance in a democratic + state.</p> + + <br clear="all" /> +<hr class="full" /> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTERIV">CHAPTER IV</a></h3> + +<h3>THE STRUGGLE RENEWED AGAINST THE CROWN</h3> + +<h4><font class="sc">Parliament under the Tudors</font></h4> + + <p>The English Parliament throughout the sixteenth century was but a + servile instrument of the Crown. The great barons were dead. Henry VIII. + put to death Sir Thomas More and all who questioned the royal absolutism. + Elizabeth, equally despotic, had by good fortune the services of the + first generation of professional statesmen that England produced. These + statesmen—Burleigh, Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Walter Mildmay, Sir + Thomas Smith, and Sir Francis Walsingham—all died in office. + Burleigh was minister for forty years, Bacon and Mildmay for more than + twenty, and Smith and Walsingham for eighteen years.<a + name="footnotetag48" href="#footnote48"><sup>[48]</sup></a></p> + + <p><a name="plateIII"></a></p> + + <div class="figcenter" style="width:50%;"> + <a href="images/plateIII.jpg"><img width="100%" src="images/plateIII.jpg" + alt="Sir John Eliot" /></a> + <h4>SIR JOHN ELIOT</h4> + </div> + <p>Parliament was not only intimidated by Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, its + membership was recruited by nominees of the Crown.<a name="footnotetag49" + href="#footnote49"><sup>[49]</sup></a> And then it is also to be borne in + mind that both Henry and Elizabeth made a point of getting Parliament to + do their will. They governed through Parliament, and ruled triumphantly, + for it is only in the later years of Elizabeth that any discontent is + heard. The Stuarts, far less tyrannical, came to grief just because they + never understood the importance of Parliament in the eyes of Englishmen + in the middle ranks, and attempted to rule while ignoring the House of + Commons.</p> + + <p>Elizabeth scolded her Parliaments, and more than once called the + Speaker of the House of Commons to account. The business of Tudor + Parliaments was to decree the proposals of the Crown. "Liberty of speech + was granted in respect of the aye or no, but not that everybody should + speak what he listed." Bacon declared, "the Queen hath both enlarging and + restraining power; she may set at liberty things restrained by statute + and may restrain things which be at liberty."</p> + + <p>Yet Elizabeth raised no objection to the theory that Parliament was + the sovereign power, for her authority controlled Parliament; and so we + have Sir Thomas Smith writing in 1589 that "the most high and absolute + power of the realm of England consisteth in the Parliament."</p> + + <p>In his "Ecclesiastical Polity," Book I. (1592-3), Hooker argues that + "Laws human, of what kind soever are available by consent," and that + "laws they are not which public approbation hath not made so"; deciding + explicitly that sovereignty rests ultimately in the people.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Victory of Parliament over the Stuarts</font></h4> + + <p>When he came to the throne in 1603, James I. was prepared to govern + with all the Tudor absolutism, but he had neither Elizabeth's + Ministers—Cecil excepted—nor her knowledge of the English + mind. The English Parliament and the English people had put up with + Elizabeth's headstrong, capricious rule, because it had been a strong + rule, and the nation had obviously thriven under it.<a + name="footnotetag50" href="#footnote50"><sup>[50]</sup></a> But it was + another matter altogether when James I. was king.</p> + + <p>"By many steps the slavish Parliament of Henry VIII. grew into the + murmuring Parliament of Queen Elizabeth, the mutinous Parliament of James + I., and the rebellious Parliament of Charles I."</p> + + <p>The twenty years of James I.'s reign saw the preaching up of the + doctrine of the divine right of kings by the bishops of the Established + Church, and the growing resolution of the Commons to revive their earlier + rights and privileges. If the Stuarts were as unfortunate in their choice + of Ministers as Elizabeth had been successful, the House of Commons was + equally happy in the remarkable men who became its spokesmen and leaders. + In the years that preceded the Civil War—1626-42—three men + are conspicuous on the Parliamentary side: Eliot, Hampden, and Pym. All + three were country gentlemen, of good estate, high principle, and + religious convictions<a name="footnotetag51" + href="#footnote51"><sup>[51]</sup></a>—men of courage and + resolution, and of blameless personal character. Eliot died in prison, in + the cause of good government, in 1632; Hampden fell on Chalgrove Field in + 1643.</p> + + <p>As in earlier centuries the struggle in the seventeenth century + between the King and the Commons turned mainly on the questions of + taxation. (At the same time an additional cause of dispute can be found + in the religious differences between Charles I. and the Parliamentarians. + The latter were mainly Puritan, accepting the Protestantism of the Church + of England, but hating Catholicism and the high-church views of Laud. The + King was in full sympathy with high Anglicanism, and, like his father, + willing to relax the penal laws against Catholics.)</p> + + <p>"By the ancient laws and liberties of England it is the known + birthright and inheritance of the subject that no tax, tallage, or other + charge shall be levied or imposed but by common consent in England, and + that the subsidies of tonnage and poundage are no way due or payable but + by a free gift and special Act of Parliament."</p> + + <p>In these memorable words began the declaration moved by Sir John Eliot + in the House of Commons on March 2nd, 1629. A royal message ordering the + adjournment of the House was disregarded, the Speaker was held down in + his chair, and the key of the House of Commons was turned against + intrusion, while Eliot's resolutions, declaring that the privileges of + the Commons must be preserved, were carried with enthusiasm.</p> + + <p>Charles answered these resolutions by dissolving Parliament and + sending Eliot to the Tower.</p> + + <p>For eleven years no Parliament was summoned. Eliot refused altogether + to make any defence for his Parliamentary conduct. "I hold that it is + against the privilege of Parliament to speak of anything which is done in + the House," was his reply to the Crown lawyers. So Sir John Eliot was + left in prison, for nothing would induce this devoted believer in + representative government to yield to the royal pressure, and three years + later, at the age of forty-two, he died in the Tower.</p> + + <p>It was for the liberties of the House of Commons that Eliot gave his + life. Wasted with sickness, health and freedom were his if he would but + acknowledge the right of the Crown to restrain the freedom of + Parliamentary debate; but such an acknowledgment was impossible from Sir + John Eliot. For him the privilege of the House of Commons in the matter + of free speech was a sacred cause, to be upheld by Members of Parliament, + even to the death—a cause every whit as sacred to Eliot as the + divine right of kings was to the Stuart bishops.</p> + + <p>Charles hoped to govern England through his Ministers without + interference from the Commons, and only the need of money compelled him + to summon Parliament.</p> + + <p>John Hampden saw that if the King could raise money by forced loans + and other exactions, the days of constitutional government were over. + Hence his memorable resistance to ship-money. London and the seaports + were induced to provide supplies for ships in 1634, on the pretext that + piracy must be prevented. In the following year the demand was extended + to the inland counties, and Hampden refused point blank to + pay—though the amount was only a matter of 20s.—falling back, + in justification of his refusal, on the Petition of + Right—acknowledged by Charles in 1628—which declared that + taxes were not to be levied without the consent of Parliament. The case + was decided in 1636, and five of the twelve judges held that Hampden's + objection was valid. The arguments in favour of non-payment were + circulated far and wide, so that, in spite of the adverse verdict, "the + judgment proved of more advantage and credit to the gentleman condemned + than to the King's service."<a name="footnotetag52" + href="#footnote52"><sup>[52]</sup></a></p> + + <p>The personal rule of Charles and his Ministers, Laud and Strafford, + came to an end in the autumn of 1640, when there was no choice left to + the King but to summon Parliament, if money was to be obtained. Earlier + in the year the "Short Parliament" had met, only to be dissolved by the + folly of the King after a sitting of three weeks, because of its + unwillingness to vote supplies without the redress of grievances.</p> + + <p>The disasters of the King's campaign against the Scots, an empty + treasury, and a mutinous army, compelled the calling of Parliament. But + the temper of the men who came to the House of Commons in November was + vastly different from the temper of the "Short Parliament."<a + name="footnotetag53" href="#footnote53"><sup>[53]</sup></a> For this was + the famous "Long Parliament" that assembled in the dark autumn days of + 1640, and it was to sit for thirteen years; to see the impeachment and + execution of Laud and Strafford, the trial and execution of the King, the + abolition of monarchy and the House of Lords, the establishment of the + Commonwealth; and was itself to pass away finally only before Cromwell's + military dictatorship.</p> + + <p>Hampden was the great figure at the beginning of this Parliament. "The + eyes of all men were fixed upon him, as their <i>patriæ pater</i>, and + the pilot that must steer the vessel through the tempests and rocks which + threatened it. I am persuaded (wrote Clarendon) his power and interest at + that time were greater to do good or hurt than any man's in the kingdom, + or than any man of his rank hath had at any time; for his reputation of + honesty was universal, and his affections seemed so publicly guided, that + no corrupt or private ends could bias them."</p> + + <p>Politically, neither Hampden nor Pym was Republican. Both believed in + government by King, Lords, and Commons; but both were determined that the + King's Ministers should be answerable to Parliament for the policy of the + Crown, and that the Commons, who found the money for government, should + have a definite say in the spending of that money. As for the royal claim + of "Divine right," and the royal view that held passive obedience to be + the duty of the King's subjects, and saw in Parliament merely a useful + instrument for the raising of funds to be spent by the royal pleasure + without question or criticism—these things were intolerable to + Hampden, Pym, and the men of the House of Commons. The King would not + govern through Parliament; the House of Commons could govern without a + King. It was left to the Civil War to decide the issue between the Crown + and Parliament, and make the House of Commons supreme.</p> + + <p>Things moved quickly in the first year of the Long Parliament. The + Star Chamber and High Commission Courts were abolished. Strafford was + impeached for high treason, and executed on Tower Hill. Archbishop Laud + lay in prison, to be executed four years later. The Grand Remonstrance of + the House of Commons was presented to Charles in December, 1641. The + demands of the Commons in the Remonstrance were not revolutionary, but + they stated, quite frankly, the case for the Parliament. The main points + were the need for securities for the administration of justice, and an + insistence on the responsibility of the King's Ministers to the Houses of + Parliament. The Grand Remonstrance was only carried by eleven votes in + the House of Commons, 159 to 148, after wild scenes. "Some waved their + hats over their heads, and others took their swords in their scabbards + out of their belts, and held them by the pummels in their hands, setting + the lower part on the ground." Actual violence was only prevented "by the + sagacity and great calmness of Mr. Hampden, by a short speech."</p> + + <p>Charles promised an answer to the deputation of members who waited + upon him with the Grand Remonstrance, and early in the new year came the + reply. The King simply demanded the surrender of five members—Pym, + Hampden, Holles, Strode, and Hazlerig—and their impeachment on the + charge of high treason. All constitutional law was set aside by a charge + which proceeded personally from the King, which deprived the accused of + their legal right to a trial by their peers, and summoned them before a + tribunal which had no pretence to a justification over them. On the + refusal of the Commons to surrender their members, Charles came in person + to Westminster with 300 cavaliers to demand their arrest. But the five + members, warned of the King's venture, were well out of the way, and + rested safely within the City of London—for the citizens were + strongly for the Parliament. "It was believed that if the King had found + them there (in the House of Commons), and called in his guards to have + seized them, the members of the House would have endeavoured the defence + of them, which might have proved a very unhappy and sad business."</p> + + <p>As it was, Charles could only retire "in a more discontented and angry + passion than he came in." The step was utterly ill-advised. Parliament + was in no mood to favour royal encroachments, and the citizens of London + were at hand, with their trained bands, to protect forcibly members of + the House of Commons.</p> + + <p>War was now imminent. "The attempt to seize the five members was + undoubtedly the real cause of the war. From that moment, the loyal + confidence with which most of the popular party were beginning to regard + the King was turned into hatred and suspicion. From that moment, the + Parliament was compelled to surround itself with defensive arms. From + that moment, the city assumed the appearance of a garrison.</p> + + <p>"The transaction was illegal from beginning to end. The impeachment + was illegal. The process was illegal. The service was illegal. If Charles + wished to prosecute the five members for treason, a bill against them + should have been sent to a grand jury. That a commoner cannot be tried + for high treason by the Lords at the suit of the Crown, is part of the + very alphabet of our law. That no man can be arrested by the King in + person is equally clear. This was an established maxim of our + jurisprudence even in the time of Edward the Fourth. 'A subject,' said + Chief Justice Markham to that Prince, 'may arrest for treason; the King + cannot; for, if the arrest be illegal, the party has no remedy against + the King.'"<a name="footnotetag54" + href="#footnote54"><sup>[54]</sup></a></p> + + <p>Both King and Parliament broke rudely through all constitutional + precedents in their preparations for hostilities.</p> + + <p>The King levied troops by a royal commission, without any advice from + Parliament, and Pym got an ordinance passed, in both Houses, appointing + the Lords-Lieutenant of the counties to command the Militia without + warrant from the Crown.</p> + + <p>A last attempt at negotiations was made at York, in April, when the + proposals of Parliament—nineteen propositions for curtailing the + power of the Monarchy in favour of the Commons—were rejected by + Charles with the words: "If I granted your demands, I should be no more + than the mere phantom of a king."</p> + + <p>By August, Charles had raised the royal standard at Nottingham, and + war was begun.</p> + + <p>Five years later and Charles was a prisoner, to die in 1649 on the + scaffold. That same year monarchy and the House of Lords were abolished + by law; the Established Church had already fallen before the triumphant + arms of the Puritans.</p> + + <p>Then, in 1653, the House of Commons itself fell—expelled by + Cromwell; and the task of the Lord Protector was to fashion a + constitution that would work.<a name="footnotetag55" + href="#footnote55"><sup>[55]</sup></a> What happened was the supremacy of + the army. Parliament, attenuated and despised, contended in vain against + the Protector. On Cromwell's death, and the failure of his son, Richard, + the army declared for Charles II., and there was an end to the + Commonwealth.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">The Democratic Protest—Lilburne</font></h4> + + <p>In all these changes the great mass of the people had neither part nor + lot; and the famous leaders of the Parliamentary Party, resolute to + curtail the absolutism of the Crown, were no more concerned with the + welfare of the labouring people than the barons were in the time of John. + The labouring people—generally—were equally indifferent to + the fortunes of Roundheads and Cavaliers, though the townsmen in many + places held strong enough opinions on the matters of religion that were + in dispute.<a name="footnotetag56" + href="#footnote56"><sup>[56]</sup></a></p> + + <p>That the common misery of the people was not in any way lightened by + Cromwell's rule we have abundant evidence, and it cannot be supposed that + the substitution of the Presbyterian discipline for episcopacy in the + Church, and the displacement of Presbyterians by Independents, was likely + to alleviate this misery.</p> + + <p>Taxation was heavier than it had ever been before, and in Lancashire, + Westmorland, and Cumberland the distress was appalling.</p> + + <p>Whitelocke, writing in 1649,<a name="footnotetag57" + href="#footnote57"><sup>[57]</sup></a> notes "that many families in + Lancashire were starved." "That many in Cumberland and Westmorland died + in the highways for want of bread, and divers left their habitations, + travelling with their wives and children to other parts to get relief, + but could find none. That the committees and Justices of the Peace of + Cumberland signed a certificate, that there were 30,000 families that had + neither seed nor bread-corn, nor money to buy either, and they desired a + collection for them, which was made, but much too little to relieve so + great a multitude."</p> + + <p>Cromwell, occupied with high affairs of State, had neither time nor + inclination to attend to social reform. Democracy had its witnesses; + Lilburne and the Levellers made their protest against military rule, and + were overpowered; Winstanley and his Diggers endeavoured to persuade the + country that the common land should be occupied by dispossessed peasants, + and were quickly suppressed.</p> + + <p>Lilburne was concerned with the establishment of a political + democracy, Winstanley with a social democracy, and in both cases the + propaganda was offensive to the Protector.</p> + + <p>Had Cromwell listened to Lilburne, and made concessions towards + democracy, the reaction against Puritanism and the Commonwealth might + have been averted.<a name="footnotetag58" + href="#footnote58"><sup>[58]</sup></a></p> + + <p>John Lilburne had been a brave soldier in the army of the Parliament + in the early years of the Civil War, and he left the army in 1645 with + the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel (and with £880 arrears of pay due to him) + rather than take the covenant and subscribe to the requirements of the + "new model."</p> + + <p>The monarchy having fallen, Lilburne saw the possibilities of tyranny + in the Parliamentary government, and at once spoke out. With considerable + legal knowledge, a passion for liberty, clear views on democracy, an + enormous capacity for work, and great skill as a pamphleteer, Lilburne + was not to be ignored. The Government might have had him for a supporter; + it unwisely decided to treat him as an enemy, and for ten years he was an + unsparing critic, his popularity increasing with every fresh pamphlet he + issued—and at every fresh imprisonment.</p> + + <p>Lilburne urged a radical reform of Parliament and a general manhood + suffrage in 1647, and the "Case for the Army," published by the Levellers + in the same year, on the proposal of the Presbyterian majority in + Parliament that the army should be disbanded, demanded the abolition of + monopolies, freedom of trade and religion, restoration of enclosed common + lands, and abolition of sinecures.</p> + + <p>Both Cromwell and Ireton were strongly opposed to manhood suffrage, + and Cromwell—to whom the immediate danger was a royalist + reaction—had no patience for men who would embark on democratic + experiments at such a season.</p> + + <p>Lilburne and the Levellers were equally distrustful of Cromwell's new + Council of State. "We were ruled before by King, Lords, and Commons, now + by a General, Court-martial, and Commons; and, we pray you, what is the + difference?" So they put the question in 1648.</p> + + <p>To Cromwell the one safety for the Commonwealth was in the loyalty of + the army to the Government. To Lilburne the one guarantee for good + government was in the supremacy of a Parliament elected by manhood + suffrage. He saw plainly that unless steps were taken to establish + democratic institutions there was no future for the Commonwealth; and he + took no part in the trial of Charles I., saying openly that he doubted + the wisdom of abolishing monarchy before a new constitution had been + drawn up.</p> + + <p>But Lilburne overestimated the strength of the Leveller movement in + the army, and the corporals who revolted were shot by sentence of + courts-martial.<a name="footnotetag59" + href="#footnote59"><sup>[59]</sup></a></p> + + <p>In vain the democratic troopers argued, "the old king's person and the + old lords are but removed, and a new king and new lords with the commons + are in one House, and so we are under a more absolute arbitrary monarchy + than before." The Government answered by clapping Lilburne in the Tower, + where, in spite of a petition signed by 80,000 for his release, he + remained for three months without being brought to trial. Released on + bail, Lilburne, who from prison had issued an "Agreement of the Free + People," calling for annual parliaments elected by manhood suffrage and + the free election of unendowed church ministers in every parish, now + published an "Impeachment for High Treason against Oliver Cromwell and + his son-in-law, James Ireton," and declared that monarchy was preferable + to a military despotism. At last, brought to trial on the charge of + "treason," Lilburne was acquitted with "a loud and unanimous shout" of + popular approval.<a name="footnotetag60" + href="#footnote60"><sup>[60]</sup></a> "In a revolution where others + argued about the respective rights of King and Parliament, he spoke + always of the rights of the people. His dauntless courage and his power + of speech made him the idol of the mob."<a name="footnotetag61" + href="#footnote61"><sup>[61]</sup></a></p> + + <p>Lilburne was again brought to trial, in 1653, and again acquitted, + with undiminished enthusiasm. But "for the peace of the nation," Cromwell + refused to allow the irrepressible agitator to be at large, and for two + years Lilburne, "Free-born John," was kept in prison. During those years + all power in the House of Commons was broken by the rule of the Army of + the Commonwealth, and Parliament stood in abject submission before the + Lord Protector. Only when his health was shattered, and he had embraced + Quaker principles, was Lilburne released, and granted a pension of 40s. a + week. The following year, at the age of 40, Lilburne died of + consumption—brought on by the close confinement he had suffered. A + year later, 1658, and Cromwell, by whose side Lilburne had fought at + Marston Moor, and against whose rule he had contended for so many a year, + was dead, and the Commonwealth Government was doomed.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Winstanley and "The Diggers"</font></h4> + + <p>The "Digger" movement was a shorter and much more obscure protest on + behalf of the people than Lilburne's agitation for democracy; but it is + notable for its social significance.</p> + + <p>While Lilburne strove vigorously for political reforms that are still + unaccomplished, Gerrard Winstanley preached a revolutionary gospel of + social reform—as John Ball and Robert Ket had before him. But + Winstanley's social doctrine allowed no room for violence, and included + the non-resistance principles that found exposition in the Society of + Friends. Hence the "Diggers," preaching agrarian revolution; but denying + all right to force of arms, never endangered the Commonwealth Government + as Lilburne and the Levellers did.</p> + + <p>Free Communism was the creed of more than one Protestant sect in the + sixteenth century, and the Anabaptists on the Continent had been + conspicuous for their experiments in community of goods and anarchist + society.</p> + + <p>Winstanley confined his teaching and practice to common ownership of + land, pleading for the cultivation of the enclosed common lands, "that + all may feed upon the crops of the earth, and the burden of poverty be + removed." There was to be no forcible expropriation of landlords.</p> + + <p>"If the rich still hold fast to this propriety of Mine and Thine, let + them labour their own lands with their own hands. And let the common + people, that say the earth is <i>ours</i>, not <i>mine</i>, let them + labour together, and eat bread together upon the commons, mountains, and + hills.</p> + + <p>"For as the enclosures are called such a man's land, and such a man's + land, so the Commons and Heath are called the common people's. And let + the world see who labour the earth in righteousness, and those to whom + the Lord gives the blessing, let them be the people that shall inherit + the earth.</p> + + <p>"None can say that their right is taken from them. For let the rich + work alone by themselves; and let the poor work together by + themselves."<a name="footnotetag62" + href="#footnote62"><sup>[62]</sup></a></p> + + <p>With the common ownership and cultivation of land, an end was to be + made of all tyranny of man over his fellows.</p> + + <p><a name="plateIV"></a></p> + + <div class="figcenter" style="width:50%;"> + <a href="images/plateIV.jpg"><img width="100%" src="images/plateIV.jpg" + alt="John Hampden" /></a> + <h4>JOHN HAMPDEN</h4> + + <i>After the Engraving by G. Houbraken.</i> + </div> + <p>"Leave off dominion and lordship one over another; for the whole bulk + of mankind are but one living earth. Leave off imprisoning, whipping, and + killing, which are but the actings of the curse. Let those that have + hitherto had no land, and have been forced to rob and steal through + poverty; henceforth let them quietly enjoy land to work upon, that + everyone may enjoy the benefit of his creation, and eat his own bread + with the sweat of his own brow."</p> + + <p>Winstanley's argument was quite simple:</p> + + <p>"If any man can say that he makes corn or cattle, he may say, <i>That + is mine</i>. But if the Lord made these for the use of His creation, + surely then the earth was made by the Lord to be a Common Treasury for + all, not a particular treasury for some."</p> + + <p>Two objections were urged against private property in land:</p> + + <p>"First, it hath occasioned people to steal from one another. Secondly, + it hath made laws to hang those that did steal. It tempts people to do an + evil action, and then kills them for doing it." It was a prolific age for + pamphlets, the seventeenth century; the land teemed with preachers and + visionaries, and Winstanley's writings never attracted the sympathy that + was given to the fierce controversialists on theological and political + questions.</p> + + <p>Only when Winstanley and his Diggers set to work with spade and shovel + on the barren soil of St. George's Hill, in Surrey, in the spring of + 1649, was the attention of the Council of State called to the strange + proceedings. The matter was left to the local magistrates and landowners, + and the Diggers were suppressed. A similar attempt to reclaim land near + Wellingboro' was stopped at once as "seditious and tumultuous." It was + quite useless for Winstanley to maintain that the English people were + dispossessed of their lands by the Crown at the Norman Conquest, and that + with the execution of the King the ownership of the Crown lands ought to + revert to the people; Cromwell and the Council of State had no more + patience with prophets of land nationalisation than with agitators of + manhood suffrage. Indeed, the Commonwealth Government never took the + trouble to distinguish between the different groups of disaffected + people, but set them all down as "Levellers," to be punished as + disturbers of the peace if they refused to obey authority.</p> + + <p>Winstanley's last pamphlet was "True Magistracy Restored," an open + letter to Oliver Cromwell, 1652, and after its publication Gerrard + Winstanley and his Diggers are heard of no more.</p> + + <p>To-day both Lilburne and Winstanley are to be recalled because the + agitation for political democracy is always with us, and the question of + land tenure is seen to be of profound importance in the discussion of + social reform. No democratic statesman in our time can propose an + improvement in the social condition of the people without reference to + the land question, and no social reformer of the nineteenth century has + had more influence or been more widely read and discussed than Henry + George—the exponent of the Single Tax on Land Values.</p> + + <p>Winstanley was very little heeded in his own day, but two hundred and + fifty years later the civilised countries of the earth are found in deep + debate over the respective rights of landowners and landless, and the + relation of poverty to land ownership. State ownership, taxation of land + values, peasant proprietorship, co-operative agriculture—all have + their advocates to-day, but to Winstanley's question whether the earth + was made "for to give ease to a few or health to all," only one answer is + returned.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">The Restoration</font></h4> + + <p>Under the Commonwealth the landowners were as powerful as they had + been under the monarchy. Enclosures continued. Social reform was not + contemplated by Cromwell nor by Councils of State; democracy was equally + outside the political vision of government. Church of England ministers + were dispossessed in favour of Nonconformists, Puritanism became the + established faith, Catholicism remained proscribed.</p> + + <p>The interest in ecclesiastical and theological disputes was + considerable, and Puritanism was popular with large numbers of the + middle-class. But to the mass of the people Puritanism was merely the + suppression of further liberties, the prohibition of old customs, the + stern abolition of Christmas revels and May-day games.</p> + + <p>Lilburne did his best to get Cromwell to allow the people some + responsibility in the choice of its rulers. Winstanley proposed a remedy + for the social distress. To neither of these men was any concession made, + and no consideration was given to their appeals.</p> + + <p>Hence the bulk of the nation, ignored by the Commonwealth Government, + and alienated by Puritanism, accepted quite amiably—indeed, with + enthusiasm—the restoration of the monarchy on the return of Charles + II., and was unmoved by the royalist reaction against Parliamentary + Government that followed on the Restoration.</p> + + <p>The House of Commons itself, when Monk and his army had gone over to + the side of Charles, voted, in the Convention Parliament of 1660, "that + according to the ancient and fundamental laws of this Kingdom, the + government is, and ought to be, by King, Lords, and Commons," and Charles + II. was received in London with uproarious enthusiasm.</p> + + <p>The army was disbanded; a royalist House of Commons restored the + Church of England and ordered general acceptance of its Prayer Book. + Puritanism, driven from rule, could only remain in power in the heart and + conscience of its adherents.</p> + + <p>To the old Commonwealth man it might seem, in the reaction against + Puritanism, and in the popularity of the King, that all that had been + striven for in the civil war had been lost, in the same way as after the + death of Simon of Montfort it might have appeared that "the good cause" + had perished with its great leader. In reality the House of Commons stood + on stronger ground than ever, and was to show its strength when James II. + attempted to override its decisions. In the main the very forms of + Parliamentary procedure were settled in the seventeenth century, to + remain undisturbed till the nineteenth century. "The Parliamentary + procedure of 1844 was essentially the procedure on which the House of + Commons conducted its business during the Long Parliament."<a + name="footnotetag63" href="#footnote63"><sup>[63]</sup></a></p> + + <p>With Charles II. on the throne the absolutism of the Crown over + Parliament passed for ever from England. Cromwell had set up the + supremacy of the army over the Commons: this, too, was gone, never to be + restored.</p> + + <p>Henceforth government was to be by King, Lords, and Commons; but + sovereignty was to reside in Parliament. Not till a century later would + democracy again be heard of, and its merits urged, as Lilburne had urged + them under the Commonwealth.</p> + + <br clear="all" /> +<hr class="full" /> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTERV">CHAPTER V</a></h3> + +<h3>CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT—ARISTOCRACY +TRIUMPHANT</h3> + +<h4><font class="sc">Government by Aristocracy</font></h4> + + <p>For nearly two centuries—from 1660 to 1830—England was + governed by an aristocracy of landowners. Charles II. kept the throne for + twenty-five years, because he had wit enough to avoid an open collision + with Parliament. James II. fled the country after three + years—understanding no more than his father had understood that + tyranny was not possible save by consent of Parliament or by military + prowess. At the Restoration the royal prerogative was dead, and nothing + in Charles II.'s reign tended to diminish the power of Parliament in + favour of the throne. Charles was an astute monarch who did not wish to + be sent on his travels again, and consequently took care not to outrage + the nation by any attempt upon the liberties of Parliament. Only by the + Tudor method of using Parliament as the instrument of the royal will + could James II. have accomplished the constitutional changes he had set + his heart upon. In attempting to set up toleration for the Roman Catholic + religion, and in openly appointing Roman Catholics to positions of + importance, James II. set Parliament at defiance and ranged the forces of + the Established Church against himself. The method was doomed to failure. + "None have gone about to break Parliaments but in the end Parliaments + have broken them."<a name="footnotetag64" + href="#footnote64"><sup>[64]</sup></a> In any case the notion of + restoring political liberty to Catholics was a bold endeavour in 1685. + Against the will of Parliament the project was folly. To overthrow the + rights of corporations and of the Universities, and to attempt to bully + the Church of England, after Elizabeth's fashion, at the very beginning + of a pro-Catholic movement, was to provoke defeat.</p> + + <p>Parliament decided that James II. had "abdicated," when, deserted by + Churchill, he fled to France, and William and Mary came to the throne at + the express invitation of Parliament. The Revolution completed the work + of the Long Parliament by defining the limits of monarchy, and + establishing constitutional government. It was not—this Revolution, + of 1688—the first time Parliament had sanctioned the deposing of + the King of England and the appointment of his successor,<a + name="footnotetag65" href="#footnote65"><sup>[65]</sup></a> but it was + the last. Never again since the accession of William and Mary have the + relations of the Crown and Parliament been strained to breaking point; + never has the supremacy of Parliament been seriously threatened by the + power of the throne.</p> + + <p>The full effects of the Revolution of 1688 were seen in the course of + the next fifty years. Aristocracy, then mainly Whig, was triumphant, and + under its rule, while large measures of civil and religious liberty were + passed, the condition of the mass of labouring people was generally + wretched in the extreme. The rule of the aristocracy saw England become a + great power among the nations of the world, and the British Navy supreme + over the navies of Europe; but it saw also an industrial population, + untaught and uncared for, sink deeper and deeper into savagery and + misery. For a time in the eighteenth century the farmer and the peasant + were prosperous, but by the close of that century the small farmer was a + ruined man, and with the labourer was carried by the industrial + revolution into the town. The worst times for the English labourer in + town and country since the Norman Conquest were the reign of Edward VI. + and the first quarter of the nineteenth century.</p> + + <p>The development of our political institutions into their present form; + the establishment of our Party system of government by Cabinet, and of + the authority of the Prime Minister; the growth of the supreme power of + the Commons, not only over the throne but over the Lords also: these were + the work of the aristocracy of the eighteenth century, and were attained + by steps so gradual as to be almost imperceptible. No idea of democracy + guided the process; yet our modern democratic system is firm-rooted upon + the principles and privileges of the Constitution as thus established. + Social misery deepened, without check from the politicians; and the most + enlightened statesmen of the Whig regime were very far from our present + conceptions of the duties and possibilities of Parliament.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Civil and Religious Liberty</font></h4> + + <p>James II. was tumbled from the throne for his vain attempt to + establish toleration for Catholics and Nonconformists without consent of + Parliament. Yet the Whig aristocracy which followed, while it did nothing + for Catholics, laid broad principles of civil and religious liberty for + democracy to build upon.<a name="footnotetag66" + href="#footnote66"><sup>[66]</sup></a></p> + + <p>The Declaration of Right, presented by Parliament to William and Mary + on their arrival in London, was turned into the Bill of Rights, and + passed into law in 1689. It stands as the last of the great charters of + political liberty, and states clearly both what is not permitted to the + Crown, and what privileges are allowed to the people.</p> + + <p>Under the Bill of Rights the King was denied the power of suspending + or dispensing, of levying money, or maintaining a standing army without + consent of Parliament. The people were assured of the right of the + subject to petition the Crown, and of the free election of + representatives in Parliament, and of full and free debate in Parliament. + Any profession of the Catholic religion, or marriage with a Catholic, + disqualified from inheritance to or possession of the throne.</p> + + <p>So there was an end to the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings, and + four hundred non-juring clergymen—including half-a-dozen + bishops—of the Church of England were deprived of their + ecclesiastical appointments for refusing to accept the accomplished fact, + and acknowledge William III. as the lawful King of England. By making + William King, to the exclusion of the children of James II., Parliament + destroyed for all future time in England the belief in the sacred + character of kingship. The King was henceforth a part of the + constitution, and came to the throne by authority of Parliament, on + conditions laid down by Parliament.</p> + + <p>William resented the decision of Parliament not to allow the Crown a + revenue for life, but to vote an annual supply; but the decision was + adhered to, and has remained in force ever since. The Mutiny Act, passed + the same year, placed the army under the control of Parliament, and the + annual vote for military expenses has, in like manner, remained.</p> + + <p>The Toleration Act (1689) gave Nonconformists a legal right to worship + in their own chapels, but expressly excluded Unitarians and Roman + Catholics from this liberty. Life was made still harder for Roman + Catholics in England by the Act of 1700, which forbade a Catholic priest, + under penalty of imprisonment for life, to say mass, hear confessions, or + exercise any clerical function, and denied the right of the Catholic + laity to hold, buy or inherit property, or to have their children + educated abroad. The objection to Roman Catholics was that their loyalty + to the Pope was an allegiance to a "foreign" ruler which prevented their + being good citizens at home. Against this prejudice it was useless to + point to what had been done by Englishmen for their country, when all the + land was Catholic, and all accepted the supremacy of the Pope. It was not + till 1778 that the first Catholic Relief Bill was carried, a Bill that + "shook the general prejudice against Catholics to the centre, and + restored to them a thousand indescribable charities in the ordinary + intercourse of social life which they had seldom experienced."</p> + + <p>The last Roman Catholic to die for conscience' sake was Oliver + Plunket, Archbishop of Armagh, who was executed at Tyburn, when Charles + II. was King, in 1681. After the Revolution, Nonconformists and Catholics + were no longer hanged or tortured for declining the ministrations of the + Established Church, but still were penalised in many lesser ways. But the + spirit of the eighteenth century made for toleration, and the Whigs were + as unostentatious in their own piety as they were indifferent to the + piety of others.</p> + + <p>The killing of "witches," however, went on in Scotland and in England + long after toleration had been secured for Nonconformists. As late as + 1712 a woman was executed for witchcraft in England.<a + name="footnotetag67" href="#footnote67"><sup>[67]</sup></a></p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Growth of Cabinet Rule</font></h4> + + <p>William III. began with a mixed ministry of Whigs and Tories, which + included men like Danby and Godolphin, who had served under James II. But + the fierce wrangling that went on over the war then being waged on the + Continent was decidedly inconvenient, and by 1696 the Whigs had succeeded + in driving all the Tories—who were against the war—out of + office. Then for the first time a united ministry was in power, and from + a Cabinet of men with common political opinions the next step was to + secure that the Cabinet should represent the party with a majority in the + House of Commons. Our present system of Cabinet rule, dependent on the + will of the majority of the Commons, is found in full operation by the + middle of the eighteenth century. The fact that William III., George I., + and George II. were all foreigners necessitated the King's ministers + using considerable powers. But George III. was English, and effected a + revival in the personal power of the King by his determination that the + choice of ministers should rest with the Crown, and not with the House of + Commons. He succeeded in breaking up the long Whig ascendancy, and so + accustomed became the people to the King making and unmaking ministries, + that on George IV.'s accession in 1820 it was fully expected the new King + would turn out the Tories and put in Whigs. William IV. in 1835 did what + no sovereign has done since—dissolved Parliament against the wish + of the government.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Walpole's Rule</font></h4> + + <p>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.<a name="footnotetag68" + href="#footnote68"><sup>[68]</sup></a> 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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">The Change in the House of Lords</font></h4> + + <p>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.<a name="footnotetag69" + href="#footnote69"><sup>[69]</sup></a></p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + +<h4>"<font class="sc">Wilkes and Liberty</font>"</h4> + + <p>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 <i>North Briton</i>, 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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <br clear="all" /> +<hr class="full" /> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTERVI">CHAPTER VI</a></h3> + +<h3>THE RISE OF THE DEMOCRATIC IDEA</h3> + +<h4><font class="sc">The Witness of the Middle Ages</font></h4> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>In the thirteenth century the friars rallied to Simon of Montfort and + preached, not democracy, but constitutional liberty.<a + name="footnotetag70" href="#footnote70"><sup>[70]</sup></a> 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.<a name="footnotetag71" + href="#footnote71"><sup>[71]</sup></a></p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">The "Social Contract" Theory</font></h4> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>The Huguenot Languet, in his <i>Vindiciae contra Tyrannos</i> (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.<a name="footnotetag72" + href="#footnote72"><sup>[72]</sup></a> 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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>Precedent, not theory, has been the argument for democracy in + England.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Thomas Hobbes</font> (1588-1679)</h4> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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 + <i>static</i> 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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">John Locke</font> (1632-1704)</h4> + + <p>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."</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Rousseau and the French Revolution</font></h4> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.<a + name="footnotetag73" href="#footnote73"><sup>[73]</sup></a></p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>"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 formulæ, 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."<a name="footnotetag74" + href="#footnote74"><sup>[74]</sup></a></p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">American Independence</font></h4> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Thomas Paine</font> (1737-1809)</h4> + + <p>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."<a name="footnotetag75" + href="#footnote75"><sup>[75]</sup></a></p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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."</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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 <i>through</i> 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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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 £ on incomes between £50 to £500; 6d. on + incomes between £500 and £1,000; an additional 6d. up to £4,000; and then + 1s. on every additional £1,000 until we get to an income tax of 20s. in + the £ on an income of £22,000 a year.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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."</p> + + <p>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.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Major Cartwright and the "Radical Reformers"</font></h4> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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 <i>universal + suffrage</i>, 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.</p> + + <p><a name="plateV"></a></p> + + <div class="figcenter" style="width:66%;"> + <a href="images/plateV.jpg"><img width="100%" src="images/plateV.jpg" + alt="The Gordon Riots" /></a> + <h4>THE GORDON RIOTS</h4> + + <i>From the Painting by Seymour Lucas, R.A.</i> + </div> + <p>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 <i>a priori</i> 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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>But "the Cause" was not dead.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Thomas Spence</font> (1750-1814)</h4> + + <p>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:—</p> + + <p>"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.</p> + + <p>"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."</p> + + <p>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."</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>"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."</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Practical Politics and Democratic Ideals</font></h4> + + <p>Because we insist on the experimental character of our British + political progress, and the steady refusal to accept speculative ideas + and <i>a priori</i> deductions in politics, it does not follow that the + services of the idealist are to be unrecognised.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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 <i>de novo</i> 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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <br clear="all" /> +<hr class="full" /> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTERVII">CHAPTER VII</a></h3> + +<h3>PARLIAMENTARY REFORM AND THE ENFRANCHISEMENT +OF THE PEOPLE</h3> + +<h4><font class="sc">The Industrial Revolution</font></h4> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>While these industrial and agrarian changes meant a striking increase + in wealth and population, they were accompanied by untold misery to the + common people.</p> + + <p>"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."<a name="footnotetag76" + href="#footnote76"><sup>[76]</sup></a></p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>The story of the misery of rural depopulation in the first half of the + sixteenth century repeats itself at the close of the eighteenth.</p> + + <p>"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 <i>Gilbert's + Act</i> 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."<a name="footnotetag77" + href="#footnote77"><sup>[77]</sup></a></p> + + <p>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."<a name="footnotetag78" href="#footnote78"><sup>[78]</sup></a></p> + +<h4><font class="sc">The Need for Parliamentary Reform</font></h4> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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."</p> + + <p>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.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Manufacturing Centres Unrepresented in Parliament</font></h4> + + <p>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.</p> + +<pre> +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 " + +</pre> + <p>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 £50 tenants at will; and settled the + borough franchise on a uniform qualification of occupation in a house of + £10 rateable value. It also fixed two days, instead of fifteen, as the + limit for county elections, and one day for boroughs.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">The Passage of the Great Reform Bill</font></h4> + + <p>The Reform Bill was not carried without much rioting in the country, + and some loss of life.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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."</p> + + <p>"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."</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>The Whigs protested that the Reform Bill was <i>a final measure</i>, + 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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>"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 <i>party</i> 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."</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">The Working Class Still Unrepresented</font></h4> + + <p>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.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Chartism</font></h4> + + <p>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 <i>Five Points of the + People's Charter</i> 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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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."<a + name="footnotetag79" href="#footnote79"><sup>[79]</sup></a></p> + + <p>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.<a name="footnotetag80" + href="#footnote80"><sup>[80]</sup></a> 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."</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>The Bill as first introduced in 1866 was a moderate measure, making a + £7 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.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">The Hyde Park Railings</font> (1866)</h4> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>"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."<a name="footnotetag81" + href="#footnote81"><sup>[81]</sup></a></p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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."<a + name="footnotetag82" href="#footnote82"><sup>[82]</sup></a> 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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Household Suffrage</font></h4> + + <p>By the Reform Bill of 1867 all male householders in boroughs were + enfranchised, and all male lodgers who paid £10 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 + <i>Household Suffrage</i> 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."<a name="footnotetag83" + href="#footnote83"><sup>[83]</sup></a></p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.<a + name="footnotetag84" href="#footnote84"><sup>[84]</sup></a> 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.</p> + + <p>While Liberals urge "one man, one vote" as the more democratic + arrangement, Conservatives reply by asking for "one vote, one + value"—that is, a new redistribution of seats, for in the last + twenty-five years there have been deep and extensive changes in the + distribution of populations, and Ireland in particular is + over-represented, it is maintained. But then the representation of + Ireland in the House of Commons was really guaranteed by the Act of + Union, 1800.<a name="footnotetag85" + href="#footnote85"><sup>[85]</sup></a></p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Working-Class Representation in Parliament</font></h4> + + <p>With the extension of the franchise the change in the <i>personnel</i> + of the House of Commons has become marked. The more wealthy of the middle + class entered in considerable numbers after 1832; the Acts of 1867 and + 1884 made the entry of the workman inevitable. The miners were the first + to send Labour representatives to Parliament, and to-day their members + outnumber those of any other trade. Since 1892 industrial constituencies, + chiefly in Yorkshire, Lancashire, South Wales, and the mining districts, + have gone on steadily electing and re-electing working-class + representatives—trade union secretaries and officers for the most + part—and with the formation of a National Labour Representation + Committee in 1900, these representatives became a separate and distinct + party—the Labour Party after 1906—in the House of + Commons.</p> + + <p>Enfranchisement to secure representation for the redress of grievances + has been the principle that has guided the English people towards + democracy. Both the middle class and the working class were convinced + that enfranchisement was necessary if the House of Commons was to be in + any real sense a representative assembly, and both have used + enfranchisement for obtaining representation in Parliament. The return of + forty Labour Members at recent general elections is evidence that a large + electorate supports the Labour Party in its desire to carry in Parliament + legislation that will make life a better thing for the labourer and his + family; and in the House of Commons the Labour Members have won a general + respect. As a matter of fact, the House of Commons to-day is in every way + a more orderly, a more intelligent, more business-like, and + better-mannered assembly than it was in the days before 1832.</p> + + <p>No stronger evidence of the value of Parliamentary representation to + the working-class can be offered than the large output of what may be + called labour legislation in recent years. It is true that Lord + Shaftesbury's benevolent and entirely disinterested activities promoted + Factory Acts in the first half of the nineteenth century, but in the last + twenty years measures for the amelioration of the lot of the workman have + been constantly before Parliament.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Removal of Religious Disabilities—Catholics, Jews, and Freethinkers</font></h4> + + <p>The nineteenth century was not only the century of popular + enfranchisement; it was the century that saw the removal of religious + disabilities, and the free admission to Parliament and to the Government + of Roman Catholics, Nonconformists, Jews, and Freethinkers.</p> + + <p>In the year 1800 Roman Catholics in England were excluded from + Parliament, from the franchise, from the magistracy, the Bar, the Civil + Service, from municipal corporations, and from commissions in the Army + and Navy. Pitt was willing to abolish these disabilities on the passing + of the Act of Union, and the Irish people were bitterly disappointed that + the disabilities remained. But George III. refused all assent to the + proposals, and Pitt resigned. Several times the House of Commons passed + Catholic Relief Bills, which were thrown out by the Lords, and it was not + till 1829, when "the English ministry had to choose between concession + and civil war," that Peel and the Duke of Wellington yielded and + persuaded their party to admit Catholics to Parliament and to the Civil + and Military Services.</p> + + <p>The repeal of the Penal Laws against Roman Catholics—Acts of + Elizabeth that inflicted penalties on priests who said mass in England, + and on Roman Catholics who attended mass—took place in 1844, and in + 1866 the Parliamentary Oath was amended and made unobjectionable to Roman + Catholics.</p> + + <p>A Roman Catholic is still excluded by law from the Crown, the Lord + Chancellorship, and the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, but many Roman + Catholics are members of Parliament—members of all + parties—and the late Lord Ripon, a Catholic, sat in a Liberal + Cabinet.</p> + + <p>In 1846 Rothschild was elected as a Liberal M.P. for the City of + London, but the law did not permit him to take his seat. Then for some + years Jewish M.P.'s were allowed to take part in debates and sit on + committees, but were not allowed to vote. Finally, in 1858, the Lords, + after rejecting the measure for ten years, passed the Jews' Disabilities + Bill, which removed all restriction. The Right Hon. Herbert Samuel, M.P., + is the first Jew to sit in the Cabinet, for though Disraeli was of the + Jewish race, he was a Christian in belief.</p> + + <p>Although in 1800 various Acts on the Statute Book required + Nonconformists to subscribe to the religion of the Church of England + before taking part in municipal affairs, these Acts had long been a dead + letter. All that was done in the nineteenth century was to repeal these + Acts, and to throw open the universities and public offices to + Nonconformists. It is only, however, in recent years that Nonconformists + have filled posts of high importance in the Cabinet.</p> + + <p>The last attempt at restriction on the religious beliefs of members of + Parliament was made in the House of Commons itself, when Charles + Bradlaugh, after being duly elected M.P. for Northampton, was by the + action of the House excluded from his seat. Bradlaugh was a frank + disbeliever in Christianity, and the House of Commons refused to allow + him either to take the oath or make an affirmation. For five years + (1880-5) the struggle lasted—a Liberal Government being in power + all the time—and three times during that period the electors of + Northampton triumphantly returned Charles Bradlaugh as their member, only + to be answered by resolutions of refusal and expulsion passed by the + House of Commons against their representative. It was a repetition of the + battle Wilkes had fought one hundred and twenty years earlier, and it + ended in the same way. A new Parliament assembled in January, 1886 (after + a general election in November), the new Speaker (Mr. Peel) permitted + Bradlaugh to take the oath in the usual way, declined to allow any + interference, and the battle was over. Two years later a general + Affirmation Bill was carried on the motion of Bradlaugh, and became law. + When Charles Bradlaugh lay dying in January, 1891, the House of Commons + passed, without dissent, a resolution expunging from the journals of the + House the old resolutions of exclusion.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">The Enfranchisement of Women</font></h4> + + <p>The nineteenth century then will always be noted as the era of steady + advance towards democracy, especially in England. Enfranchisement of the + workman, and his representation in Parliament, have transferred the + government of the country from an aristocracy to the middle class and the + working class, for to-day, alike in Parliament and in the permanent Civil + Service, men of the middle class predominate, assisted by those who + served apprenticeship in mine or workshop. The removal of religious + disabilities has ended the old rule that confined the business of the + legislature and the administration of justice to members of the + Established Church of England, and Roman Catholics, Jews, Nonconformists, + and Freethinkers now take their share in all public work.</p> + + <p>One disability only remains—the sex disability that denies the + parliamentary franchise to women. In the middle ages women were excused + from parliamentary attendance, but there was no notion that their powers + and privileges as landowners were shortened because, on account of their + sex, they were granted exemption from Parliament and from juries. In 1868 + a test case—Chorlton <i>v.</i> Lings—was brought, and the + judges decided that women householders were not to be registered as + electors, and it was left to Parliament to pass a Women's Enfranchisement + Bill. From the time of John Stuart Mill's advocacy in 1867 there have + always been supporters of Women's Suffrage in the House of Commons, and + in the last five years these supporters have been growing in numbers. + Only the refusal of the Government to give time for the discussion of the + Bill in Committee has prevented a Woman's Enfranchisement measure, which + on several occasions has received a second reading, from passing the + House of Commons; and the announcement by the present (1911) Government + that full facilities for such discussion are to be granted next year + (1912) would indicate that the removal of political sex disabilities is + close at hand. Women are not asking for adult suffrage, but are willing + to receive enfranchisement on the terms that qualify men as electors, and + the Conciliation Bill, as it is called—because members of every + political party have agreed to make it their Bill—would place on + the roll of electors rather more than a million of women voters.</p> + + <p>Meantime, while waiting for the removal of the anti-democratic barrier + that excludes them from full political citizenship, women are admitted in + the United Kingdom to an equal share with men in all local government. + Since 1869 women who are householders have enjoyed the municipal + franchise, and as Poor Law guardians and members of school boards, they + have been freely elected to sit side by side with men. In 1907 women were + declared eligible by Parliament for membership on county and borough + councils, and for the chairmanship of county councils and the mayoralty + of boroughs. Since this Act was passed we have seen women elected to the + councils of great cities—Manchester and Liverpool, for + instance—and chosen as mayors in several towns. No political + movement in recent years has been of greater public interest or + importance than the agitation for "Votes for Women." The demand for + enfranchisement is based on the old constitutional ground of the + Parliamentarians of the seventeenth century—that those who are + directly taxed by Government must have some political control of the + public expenditure—and it is supported by the present leader of the + Conservative Party<a name="footnotetag86" + href="#footnote86"><sup>[86]</sup></a> on the ground that government can + only be carried on in England by consent of the governed.</p> + + <p>The demand for the parliamentary franchise is with us the expression + of that deep dissatisfaction at the unequal relations of the sexes that + is felt by many men, and by far more women, all over the civilised world. + As the middle-class man and the workmen of Great Britain were sure that + they could not get from Parliament an understanding of popular + grievances, still less fair treatment, until they possessed the right to + choose their own parliamentary representatives, so women are convinced + that there can be no adequate adjustment of these unequal relations until + they too enjoy the same privilege of citizenship; for enfranchisement and + representation are the two chosen instruments of democratic government in + our day.</p> + + <br clear="all" /> +<hr class="full" /> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTERVIII">CHAPTER VIII</a></h3> + +<h3>DEMOCRACY AT WORK</h3> + +<h4><font class="sc">Local Government</font></h4> + + <p>To-day in Great Britain, in America, in the self-governing colonies, + and in many European countries, we can sec the principles of democracy in + working order.</p> + + <p>The whole system of local government in Great Britain and Ireland is + essentially democratic. The municipal councils of all the large cities + are elected on household suffrage, and have enormous powers. There is now + no sex disability to prevent the election of women to these bodies, and, + except in the case of the clergy of the Established Church, who are + disqualified from sitting on town councils (but not on county or district + councils), all ratepayers are eligible for nomination. The result is that + on nearly every city council, and on a great number of county councils, + London borough councils, urban and rural district councils, boards of + guardians, and parish councils, there are working-class representatives, + while women members have been elected to the great councils of Liverpool + and Manchester, and sit on many boards of guardians and parish + councils.</p> + + <p>All these councils are of recent creation. The Municipal Corporations + Act of 1835 placed the election of town councils for the first time in + the hands of the ratepayers, but the real reform of local government + dates from 1888. In that year the Conservative Government established + county and district councils and Lord Rosebery became the first chairman + of the London County Council. Six years later the Liberals set up parish + councils in the rural districts, with parish meetings where the + population did not exceed three hundred. In 1899 the Conservatives + displaced the old London vestries by borough councils, and in 1902-3 + abolished in England the school boards created in 1870, and made the + county council the local authority for public elementary education. + Scotland was allowed to retain its school boards, and strong but + unsuccessful opposition was made in London and the chief cities to the + suppression of the specially elected education authority.</p> + + <p><a name="plateVI"></a></p> + + <div class="figcenter" style="width:50%;"> + <a href="images/plateVI.jpg"><img width="100%" src="images/plateVI.jpg" + alt="The Right Hon. John Burns, M.P." /></a> + <h4>THE RIGHT HON. JOHN BURNS, M.P.</h4> + + <i>Photo: Moyse, Putney.</i> + </div> + <p>As far as rural England is concerned, county councils, district + councils, and parish councils are, generally speaking, very reluctant to + put into operation the wide powers they possess. The average county + council, though popularly elected, is composed in agricultural England of + landowners and the bigger farmers, who, as a common rule, do not favour a + land programme for labourers, and are anxious to keep down the rates. The + rural district council and board of guardians are equally averse from any + display of public enterprise, and the parish council, which often + consists mainly of labourers, rarely accomplishes anything except at the + prompting, or with the sanction, of the parochial landowner. The result + is that allotments, rural housing, village baths and washhouses, an + adequate water supply, public halls and libraries, are not regarded as + the concern of rural elected authorities, but are left to the private + enterprise of landowners. Civic pride, which glories in the public + proprietorship of lands and libraries, tramways and lodging-houses, + waterworks and workmen's dwellings, art galleries and swimming baths, and + is a living influence in the municipalities of, let us say, London, + Glasgow, Liverpool, Leeds, Bradford, Manchester, Birmingham, West Ham, + and many a smaller borough, does not exist in rural councils. To the + farmer and the peasant public ownership is a new and alien thing. The + common lands and all the old village communal life have gone out of the + memory of rural England; but the feudal tradition that the landowner is + the real centre of authority has survived, and it is the benevolent + landowner who is expected to build cottages, grant allotments, and see to + the water supply, as fifty years ago he built and managed the village + school. Political organisation could break through this tradition, but + farmers and agricultural labourers are without this organisation; and so + the authority of the landowner remains, in spite of the democratic + constitution of local government. The people can allow their power to + remain in the hands of others, just as a king can be content to reign + without ruling, and the local government of rural England is an oligarchy + elected by a popular franchise.</p> + + <p>In the factory towns and the mining districts it is a very different + matter. Here the people are organised, and take their share in local + government. In the county of Durham, for instance, the working class + predominates on local councils, and the influence of trade unions + prevails in these assemblies wherever a strong Labour party exists. Mr. + Joseph Chamberlain began his public career on the Birmingham Town + Council, and his municipal services earned for him the enthusiastic + support of Birmingham for all his later political ventures. It would be + difficult to mention the name of a great statesman who laid the + foundations of his fame in rural local government.</p> + + <p>As in local government, so in the Imperial Parliament. Rural England + sends no Labour member to the House of Commons. Only in very exceptional + cases has a tenant farmer been elected. It is the social labour of the + mine and the mill that has produced the Labour member of Parliament.</p> + + <p>Mr. Joseph Arch made a valiant attempt to organise the agricultural + labourers of England, and from 1880 to 1890 a rural labourers' union, + with some thousands of members, was in existence. For a time this secured + a rise in wages, and when Mr. Arch was in Parliament, as a Liberal M.P. + (1885-1895), the rural labourer hoped for lasting improvement in the + conditions of life. But the Union fell to pieces, and Mr. Arch was not + strong enough single-handed to force the claims of his constituents on + the House of Commons.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">The Workman in the House of Commons</font></h4> + + <p>To-day there are more than forty workmen in the House of Commons, and + the great majority of these have served an apprenticeship in municipal + and trade union offices. Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Lancashire, + Stafford, South Wales, Glasgow, Dundee, Leicester, Norwich and London, + all have their elected Labour members in Parliament, and a marked + preference is shown for the man who has proved his honesty and capacity + in the municipality, or as the leader of his trade union. All the miners' + representatives are tried and experienced men. Mr. G.N. Barnes, M.P., was + for ten years the general secretary of the Amalgamated Society of + Engineers. Mr. Clynes, M.P., was elected to the office of district + secretary of the Gas Workers' and General Labourers' Union twenty years + ago; Mr. Will Thorne, M.P., has been general secretary of the same union + since 1889, and has sat on the West Ham Corporation for more than sixteen + years. Mr. George Lansbury, M.P., and Mr. Will Crooks, M.P., are well + known for their work on the London County Council and on their local + borough council and board of guardians. Similarly with other Labour + members of Parliament. Their lives are marked by a sense of public + responsibility, with the result that in the House of Commons they are + grave, business-like, and undemonstrative. The Labour members do not make + "scenes"; they respect the rules of the House and the dignity of the + National Assembly, partly because they are all in sober middle age, but + more because they have learnt that public business can only be carried on + by due observance of order; and they are in Parliament to get business + done for their constituents, to promote legislation that will make life + easier for the working class. When Mr. Victor Grayson, in the exuberance + of youth, and with a passion that blazed out against the misery of the + poor, made a "scene" in the House of Commons, and was expelled, the + Labour members were quite sincere in their disapproval. They understood, + with a wider knowledge than Mr. Grayson possessed, that "scenes" + alienated sympathy in the House, were not helpful in debate, and were not + popular with the electors.</p> + + <p>The member who would succeed in the House of Commons must respect the + usages of the House, and show himself loyal to its laws of debate. As + long as this respect and loyalty are shown the Labour member is accepted + by his fellow-members as one who has been elected to the greatest club in + the world, and is justly entitled to all the privileges of membership. + For the British House of Commons is a democratic assembly, and in its + collective pride it cares nothing for the opinions or social rank of its + members. All it asks is that the newly-elected member should be alive to + the honour of membership, should be modest in his bearing, and should as + soon as possible "catch the tone of the House." He may be a labourer, or + the son of a belted earl; the House is indifferent so long as his + parliamentary manners are good.</p> + + <p>The House of Commons is a far more orderly assembly than it was a + hundred years ago; it is more sober and less noisy, and the arrival of + Labour members has increased rather than diminished its good behaviour. + It is also a far more industrious assembly, and the influence of the + Labour party compels an amount of legislation that honourable members + would have thought impossible fifty years ago.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Working-class Leaders in Parliament</font></h4> + + <p>Three representative working-class leaders in the House of Commons + stand out pre-eminently in contemporary politics—the Right Hon. + John Burns, Mr. J. Keir Hardie, and Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald. The Right + Hon. D. Lloyd George is conspicuous rather as the representative of the + industrious Nonconformist middle class, but the success of his career is + no less significant of the advance of democracy. The very Cabinet is now + no longer an aristocratic committee, and the highest offices of executive + government are held by men who are neither wealthy nor of distinguished + family.</p> + + <p>Two working-class leaders of an earlier generation—the Right + Hon. T. Burt, M.P., and Mr. H. Broadhurst—held office as + Under-Secretaries in the Liberal Government of 1892-5; but Mr. John Burns + is the first trade unionist to sit in the Cabinet. He, too, might have + been an Under-Secretary in the days of that short-lived Ministry, but + decided, with characteristic vigour, that if he was fit to be an + Under-Secretary he was fit for the Cabinet. At the close of 1905 the + opportunity came, and the offer of Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman to preside + over the Local Government Board was promptly accepted. The workman first + took his place in the Cabinet when Mr. John Burns, at the age of + forty-seven, went to the Local Government Board—to the complete + satisfaction of Mr. Burns. For the robust egoism of Mr. Burns is largely + a class pride. His invincible belief in himself is part of an equally + invincible belief in the working class. His ambitions thrive on the + conviction that whatever Mr. John Burns does, that the working class does + in the person of their representative. Always does he identify himself + with the mechanics and labourers with whom his earlier years were spent, + and by whose support he has risen to office. The more honours for Mr. + John Burns, the more does it seem to this stalwart optimist that the + working class is honoured. He arrays himself in court dress at the + palaces of kings, receives honorary degrees at Universities, and is kept + before the public by the newspaper paragraphist, without wincing or + pretending to dislike it. Why should the workman not be esteemed by kings + and universities? Mr. Burns asks. So great is his self-respect that the + respect of others is taken as a matter of course. Much of the criticism + that has been directed against Mr. John Burns misses the mark, because it + does not recognise that the motive power at work all the time in his + career is the triumph of his class. It is the triumph of a member of the + Amalgamated Society of Engineers, of a London workman, that Mr. John + Burns beholds with unconcealed pleasure in his own success.</p> + + <p>There are drawbacks, of course, to this complete self-satisfaction. + Since the workman has triumphed in the person of Mr. John Burns, the + working class would do well to follow his example, and heed his advice on + all matters affecting its welfare, Mr. Burns argues. The failures of + working-class life and the misery of the poor are due to the lack of + those virtues that he possesses, he is apt to maintain. Hence Mr. Burns + is hated as a Pharisee in certain quarters when he extols self-reliance + and total abstinence as essential to working-class prosperity, and points + to gambling and strong drink as the root of all evil in the State. It is + sometimes urged that Mr. Burns over-praises his own merits; but the fault + is really in the opposite direction; he does not appreciate sufficiently + that the gifts he possesses—the gifts he has used so fully and so + freely—are exceptional. These gifts are a powerful physique, a + great voice, a tremendous energy, and a love of literature; and they are + not the common equipment of the skilled mechanic and the labourer. True, + they are often wasted and destroyed when they do exist; and in the case + of Mr. Burns a strongly disciplined will has made them abundantly + fruitful. But from the first the physique, the voice, and the untiring + energy were far above those that fall to the lot of the average workman; + and the love of books stored the mind with rich supplies of language to + be drawn upon when speeches were to be made. Not as an administrator at + the Local Government Board has Mr. Burns become famous. His fame as a + champion of the working class was established by popular ovations in Hyde + Park and at dock gates. Battersea has been won and held by the speeches + of its member. It is not the mighty voice alone, silencing interruption + often enough by sheer volume of sound, but the plainly pointed epigram, + the ready jest and the quick repartee that endear Mr. John Burns' + speeches to the multitude. His sayings and phrases are quoted. His wit is + the wit of the Londoner—the wit that Dickens knew and studied, the + wit of the older cabmen and 'bus drivers, the wit of the street boy. It + is racy, it is understood, and the illustrations are always concrete and + massive, never vague or unsubstantial. Apt Shakespearian quotations, + familiar and unfamiliar, embellish the speeches. Personality, vital + personality, counts for so much in the orator of the market place. The + speaker must be alive to his audience, he must convince by his presence + no less than by his arguments. And Mr. Burns is so obviously alive. He + warms the shrunken, anæmic vitality of followers, and overpowers the + protests of enemies by sheer force of character.</p> + + <p>Mr. John Burns is at his real vocation when addressing a great + multitude. His energy finds an outlet in speech on those occasions, an + outlet it can never find in the necessary routine of office + administration. He was made for a life of action, and when once, in + youth, he had thrown himself into the active study of political and + industrial questions, every opportunity was seized for stating the + results of that study. As a Social Democratic candidate for Parliament, + Mr. Burns polled 598 votes at West Nottingham in 1885. In 1886 he was + charged (with Messrs. Hyndman, Champion, and Williams) with seditious + conspiracy—after an unemployed riot in the West End—and + acquitted. In 1887 he suffered six weeks imprisonment (with Mr. R.B. + Cunninghame Graham) for contesting the right of free speech in Trafalgar + Square. In 1889 came the great London dock strike, and, with Messrs. Mann + and Tillett, Mr. Burns was a chief leader of the dockers. Battersea + returned him to the London County Council in 1889 and to the House of + Commons in 1892. The Liberal Party promised a wider sphere of work than + the Socialists could offer; political isolation was a barren business; + and Mr. Burns gradually passed from the councils of the trade union + movement to the Treasury Bench of a Liberal Ministry. But the Socialist + convictions of early manhood had a lasting influence on their owner. + These convictions have been mellowed by work; responsibility has checked + and placed under subjection the old revolutionary ardour; experience + finds the road to a co-operative commonwealth by no means a quick or easy + route, and admits the necessity of compromise. But there is still a + consciousness of the working class as a class in the speeches of Mr. + Burns; and there is still the belief expressed that the working class + must work out their own salvation, and that it is better the people + should have the power to manage their own national and municipal affairs, + and the wisdom to use that power aright, rather than that a benevolent + bureaucracy should manage things for them. Mr. John Burns is an older man + by twenty-five years than he was in the stormy days of the Trafalgar + Square riots, and he is now a Privy Councillor and Cabinet Minister, but + his character is little changed. His speeches on the settlement of the + great Dock Strike of August, 1911, are the speeches of the man of 1889. + Parliamentary life made sharper changes in the minds of Gladstone and Mr. + Joseph Chamberlain than it has made in the mind of the Right Hon. John + Burns. But Mr. Burns never admits that he possesses health and vigour + beyond the average.</p> + + <p>A working class leader of vastly different qualities is Mr. J. Keir + Hardie, M.P. He, too, no less significant of democracy, stands as the + representative of his class, claims always to be identified with it, to + be accepted as its spokesman. A Lanarkshire miner and active trade + unionist, Mr. Hardie has striven to create a working-class party in + politics independent of Liberals and Conservatives; to him, more than to + any other man, the existence of the Independent Labour Party and the + Parliamentary Labour Party—the latter consisting of the Independent + Labour Party and the trade unions—may justly be said to be due. The + political independence of an organised working class has been the one + great idea of Mr. Hardie's public life. Not by any means his only idea, + for Mr. Hardie has been the ever-ready supporter of all democratic causes + and the faithful advocate of social reforms; but the <i>great</i> idea, + the political pearl of great price, for which, if necessary, all else + must be sacrificed. Only by this independence can democracy be achieved, + and a more equal state of society be accomplished—so Mr. Hardie has + preached to the working people for the last twenty-five years at public + meetings and trade union congresses, travelling the length and breadth of + Great Britain in his mission.</p> + + <p>There is something of the poet in Mr. Keir Hardie but much more of the + prophet, and withal a good deal of shrewd political common sense. Where + Mr. John Burns wants, humanly, the approval and goodwill of his friends + and neighbours for his work, Mr. Keir Hardie is content with the + assurance of his own conscience; and in times of difficulty he chooses + rather to walk alone, communing with his own heart, than to seek the + consolations of social intercourse.</p> + + <p>Mr. Burns is a citizen of London, a lover of its streets, at home in + all its noise, a reveller in its festivities. Mr. Hardie belongs to his + native land; he is happier on the hills of Lanarkshire than in the + Parliament of Westminster; solitude has no terrors for him. Both men + entered the House in 1892. Personal integrity, blameless private life, + and a doggedness that will not acknowledge defeat, have had much to do + with the success that both have won. For if Mr. Hardie remains a private + member of the House of Commons while Mr. Burns is a Cabinet Minister, Mr. + Hardie has lived to see an independent Labour Party of forty members in + Parliament, and has himself been its accredited leader.</p> + + <p>Again, exceptional gifts may be noted. An eloquence of speech, a + rugged sincerity that carries conviction, a love of nature and of + literature—all these things, controlled and tempered by will and + refined by use, have won for Mr. Hardie a high regard and an affection + for the cause he champions. For years Mr. Hardie was misrepresented in + the Press, abused by political opponents and misunderstood by many of the + working class. From 1895 to 1900 he was out of Parliament, rejected by + the working-class electorate of South West Ham. But nothing turned Mr. + Hardie from his policy of independence, or shook his faith in the belief + that only by forming a political party of their own could the working + people establish a social democracy. Merthyr Tydvil re-elected him to the + House of Commons in 1900 at the very time when he was braving a strong + public opinion by denouncing the South African War; and for Merthyr Mr. + Hardie will sit as long as he is in Parliament.</p> + + <p>It may safely be said that Mr. Hardie will never take office in a + Liberal Ministry. The sturdy republicanism that keeps him from court + functions and from the dinner parties of the rich and the great, and the + strong conviction that Labour members do well to retain simple habits of + life, are not qualities that impel men to join Governments.</p> + + <p>Visionary as he is—and no less a visionary because he has seen + some fulfilment of his hopes—so indifferent to public opinion that + many have exclaimed at his indiscretions, with a religious temperament + that makes him treat his political work as a solemn calling of God and + gives prophetic fire to his public utterances, Mr. Keir Hardie may remain + a private member of Parliament; but he also remains an outstanding figure + in democratic politics, conspicuous in an age that has seen the working + class rising cautiously to power. Mr. Hardie's influence with the + politically minded of the working class has contributed in no small + degree to the changes that are now at work. The ideal of a working class, + educated and organised, taking up the reins of government and using its + power in sober righteousness, has been preached by Mr. Hardie with a + fervour that commands respect. He has made an appeal that has moved the + hearts of men and women by its religious note, and hence it is very + considerably from the ranks of Nonconformists with Puritan traditions + that the Independent Labour Party has been recruited. Mr. Hardie is now + fifty-five years of age. He has never been afraid of making mistakes, and + he has never sought the applause of men. He has succeeded in arousing + large numbers of people from a passive allegiance to the party + governments of Liberals and Conservatives, and constrained them to march + under a Labour banner at political contests. Whether the Labour Party in + Parliament will remain a separate organisation or will steadily become + merged in the Liberal Party, forming perhaps a definite left wing of that + party: whether a sufficiently large number of voters will ever be found + to make the Labour Party anything more than a group in Parliament: and + whether the Independent Labour movement is not passing as Robert Owen's + socialist movement and as the Chartist movement passed away in the middle + of the nineteenth century, are questions that are yet to be answered. + Democracy will go its own way in spite of the prophets. In any case, the + work of Mr. Keir Hardie has been fruitful and valuable. For it has made + for a quickened intelligence, and a more exalted view of human life + amongst the working people; and it has increased the sense of personal + and civic responsibility. It has made for civilisation, in fact, and it + has insisted on the importance of things that democracy can only forget + to its own destruction.</p> + + <p>The third distinguished working-class leader in Parliament is Mr. J. + Ramsay MacDonald, the elected leader of the Labour Party, and its + secretary since its formation. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald is for the working + class, but, though born of labouring people, and educated in a Scotch + board school, has long ceased to be of them. Never a workman, and never + associated with the workman's trade union, Mr. MacDonald went from school + teaching to journalism and to a political private secretaryship, and so + settled down quickly into the habits and customs of the ruling middle + class. Marriage united him still more closely with the middle class, and + strengthened his position by removing all fear of poverty, and providing + opportunities for travel.</p> + + <p>From the first Mr. MacDonald's political life has been directed + clearly to one end—the assumption of power to be used for the + social improvement of the people. And this ambition has carried him far, + and may carry him farther. With the industry and persistence that are + common to his race, Mr. MacDonald has taken every means available to + educate himself on all political questions; with the result that he is + accepted to-day as one of the best informed members of the House of + Commons. He taught himself to speak, and his speeches are appreciated. He + taught himself to write, and his articles on political questions have + long been welcome in the monthly reviews, and his books on Socialism are + widely read. Twenty years ago the Liberal Party promised no political + career to earnest men like Mr. MacDonald, men anxious for social reform. + The future seemed to be with the Socialists, and with the Independent + Labour Party. When the Liberal downfall came in 1895, it was thought that + the fortunes of Liberalism were ended. Native prudence has restrained Mr. + Ramsay MacDonald from pioneering, but once the Independent Labour Party, + of Mr. Keir Hardie's desire, was set going, and promised an effectual + means for political work, Mr. MacDonald joined it, and did well to do so. + As an ordinary Liberal or Radical Member of Parliament, Mr. Ramsay + MacDonald would never have had the opportunities the Labour Party has + given him. He only entered the House of Commons in 1906—at the age + of forty—and already as leader of the Labour Party he is a + distinguished Parliamentary figure, of whose future great things are + foretold.</p> + + <p>Mr. MacDonald has studied politics as other people study art or + science. He has trained himself to become a statesman as men and women + train themselves to become painters and musicians. He has learnt the + rules of the game, marked the way of failure and the road to success, and + his career may be pondered as an example to the young. No generous + outburst of wrath disfigures Mr. MacDonald's speeches, no rash utterance + is ever to be apologised for, no hasty impulse to be regretted. In the + Labour movement Mr. MacDonald won success over older men by an + indefatigable industry, a marked aptitude for politics, and by an obvious + prosperity. Other things being equal, it is inevitable that in politics, + as in commerce, the needy, impecunious man will be rejected in favour of + the man with an assured balance at the bank, and the man of regular + habits preferred before a gifted but uncertain genius. The Socialist and + Labour movements of our time have claimed the services of many gifted men + and women, and the annals of these movements are full of heroic + self-sacrifice. But an aptitude for politics was not a distinguishing + mark of Socialists, and therefore Mr. MacDonald's experience and + abilities gave him at once a prominent place in the council of the + Independent Labour Party, and soon made him the controlling power in that + organisation. With the formation of the National Labour Party a very much + wider realm was to be conquered, and Mr. MacDonald has been as successful + here as in the earlier Independent Labour Party. But now the Labour Party + having made Mr. MacDonald its chairman, it can do no more for him. He is + but forty-five years old, his health is good, his talents are recognised; + by his aversion from everything eccentric or explosive, the public have + understood that he is trustworthy. We may expect to see Mr. Ramsay + MacDonald a Cabinet Minister in a Liberal-Labour Government. It may even + happen that he will become Prime Minister in such a Government. He is a + "safe" man, without taint of fanaticism. His sincerity for the + improvement of the lot of the poor does not compel him to extravagant + speech on the subject, and his imagination is sufficient to exclude + dullness of view. He has proved that the application of Socialist + principles does not require any violent disturbance of the existing + order, and is compatible with social respectability and political + authority. A public opinion that would revolt against the notion of an + ex-workman becoming Prime Minister would not be outraged in any way by + Mr. MacDonald holding that office. Mr. Burns and Mr. Hardie have remained + in their own and in the public eye representatives of the working class, + all education notwithstanding. Mr. MacDonald has long cut himself off + from the labouring class of his boyhood. He has adapted himself easily + and naturally to the life and manners of the wealthier professional + classes, and he moves without constraint in the social world of high + politics, as one born to the business. No recognition of the workman is + possible in Mr. Ramsay MacDonald's case, and this fact is greatly in his + favour with the multitudes who still hold that England should be ruled by + "gentlemen."</p> + + <p>The Right Hon. D. Lloyd George is a striking figure in our new + democracy, and his character and position are to be noted. It was not as + a labour representative but as the chosen mouthpiece of the working + middle class, enthusiastic for Welsh nationalism, that Mr. Lloyd George + entered Parliament in 1890, at the age of twenty-seven. With his entry + into the Cabinet, in company with Mr. John Burns, at the Liberal revival + in 1905, government by aristocracy was ended; and when Mr. Lloyd George + went from the Board of Trade to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, + startling changes were predicted in national finance. These predictions + were held to have been fulfilled in the Budget of 1909. The House of + Lords considered the financial proposals of the Budget so revolutionary + that it took the unprecedented course of rejecting the Bill, and thus + precipitated the dispute between the two Houses of Parliament, which was + brought to a satisfactory end by the Parliament Act of 1911. Romantic and + idealist from the first, and with unconcealed ambition and considerable + courage, Mr. Lloyd George, with the strong backing of his Welsh + compatriots, fought his way into the front rank of the Liberal Party + during the ten years (1895-1905) of opposition. More than once Mr. George + pitted himself against Mr. Joseph Chamberlain in the days of the + Conservative ascendancy and the South African War, and his powers as a + Parliamentary debater won general acknowledgment. In youth Mr. Lloyd + George, full of the fervour of Mazzini's democratic teaching, dreamed of + Wales as a nation, a republic, with himself, perhaps, as its first + president. Welsh nationalism could not breed a Home Rule Party as Irish + nationalism has done, and Mr. Lloyd George has found greater scope for + his talents in the Liberal Party. The Welsh "question" has dwindled into + a campaign for the Disestablishment of the Church in Wales, a warfare of + Dissenters and Churchmen, and to Mr. Lloyd George there were bigger + issues at stake than the position of the Welsh Church.</p> + + <p><a name="plateVII"></a></p> + + <div class="figcenter" style="width:50%;"> + <a href="images/plateVII.jpg"><img width="100%" src="images/plateVII.jpg" + alt="The Right Hon. D. Lloyd George, M.P." /></a> + <h4>THE RIGHT HON. D. LLOYD GEORGE, M.P.</h4> + + <i>Photo: Reginald Haines, Southampton Row, W.C.</i> + </div> + <p>Already Mr. Lloyd George's Budget and his speeches in support of the + Budget have made the name of the Chancellor of the Exchequer familiar to + the people of Great Britain; and now, in the eager discussion on his Bill + for National Insurance, that name is still more loudly spoken. Hated by + opponents and praised by admirers, denounced and extolled, Mr. Lloyd + George enjoys the tumult he arouses. His passionate speeches for the poor + provoke the sympathy of the working class; his denunciations of the rich + stir the anger of all who fear social revolution. Hostile critics deny + any constructive statesmanship in Mr. Lloyd George's plans and orations, + and prophesy a short-lived tenure of office. Radical supporters hail him + as a saviour of society, and are confident that under his leadership + democracy will enter the promised land of peace and prosperity for all. + Neutral minds doubt whether Mr. Lloyd George is sufficiently + well-balanced for the responsibilities of high office, and express + misgivings lest the era of social reform be inaugurated too rapidly. The + obvious danger of a fall always confronts ambition in politics, but the + danger is only obvious to the onlooker. Pressing forward the legislative + measures he has set his heart upon, and impatient to carry out the policy + that seems to him of first importance to the State, Mr. Lloyd George pays + little heed to the criticism of friends or foes. A supreme + self-confidence carries him along, and the spur of ambition is constantly + pricking. Political co-operation is difficult for such a man, and an + indifference to reforms that are not of his initiation, and a willingness + to wreck legislation that cannot bear his name, are a weakness in Mr. + Lloyd George that may easily produce a fall. Only a very strong man can + afford to say that a reform shall be carried in his way, or not at all, + in cheerful disregard of the wishes of colleagues and followers. Mr. + Lloyd George's attitude on the question of Women's Suffrage is + characteristic. Professing a strong belief in the justice of women's + enfranchisement, he assumes that he can safely oppose all Women's + Suffrage Bills that are not of his framing, even when these Bills are the + work of ardent Liberals. He would have the measure postponed until he + himself can bring in a Reform Bill, to the end that the enfranchisement + of women may be associated with his name for all time.</p> + + <p>It is dangerous to the statesman, the ambition that finds satisfaction + less in the success of a party or the triumph of a cause, than in the + personal victory. Dangerous, because it brings with it an isolation from + friends and colleagues. These come to stand coldly aloof, and then, if a + slip occurs or a mistake is made, and there comes a fall, no hands are + stretched out to repair the damage or restore the fallen. The statesman + who is suspected of "playing for his own hand" may laugh at the murmurs + of discontent amongst his followers while all goes well for him, but when + he falls he falls beyond recovery. No one can foretell the end of Mr. + Lloyd George's career, but his popularity with the multitude will not + make up to him for the want of support in Parliament should an error of + judgment undo him. The pages of political history are strewn with the + stories of high careers wrecked in a feverish haste for fame, that + overlooked dangers close at hand; of eminent politicians broken in the + full course of active life by the mere forgetfulness of the existence of + other persons. A simple miscalculation of forces, and from lofty station + a minister tumbles into the void.</p> + + <p>The stability of the working-class leaders makes their future a matter + of fairly safe conjecture. Mr. Lloyd George, romantic in temperament, + covetous of honour, confident of popularity, but heedless of good-will + alienated and of positive ill-will created, has reached the + Chancellorship of the Exchequer. Will he climb still higher in office, or + will he pass to the limbo peopled by those who were and are not? Time + alone can tell. But in this year of grace 1911 Mr. Lloyd George, + incarnation of the hard-working middle class, is a very distinct + personality in the government of the country, and his presence in the + Cabinet a fact in the history of democracy.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">The Present Position of the House of Lords</font></h4> + + <p>More than once since 1831 the House of Lords has come into conflict + with the House of Commons when a Liberal Government has been in power. A + compromise was effected between the two Houses over the Disestablishment + of the Irish Church in 1869, the Lords, on the whole, giving way. When + the Lords proposed to "amend" the Army Reform Bill (for abolishing the + purchase of commissions) in 1871, Gladstone overpowered their opposition + by advising the Crown to cancel the Royal Warrant which made purchase + legal, and to issue a new warrant ending the sale of commissions. This + device completely worsted the House of Lords, for a refusal to pass the + Bill under the circumstances merely deprived the holders of commissions + of the compensation awarded in the Bill. The Army Reform Bill became law, + but strong objection was taken by many Liberals to the sudden exercise of + the Royal Prerogative. In 1884 the Lords refused to pass the Bill for the + enfranchisement of the rural labourer unless a Bill was brought in at the + same time for a redistribution of seats. After some discussion Gladstone + yielded, the Redistribution Bill was drawn up, and passed the Commons + simultaneously with the Franchise Bill in the Lords.</p> + + <p>Several Bills have been rejected or "amended" by the Lords since the + Liberals came into power in 1906, and the crisis came when the Budget was + rejected in 1909. In June, 1907, the following resolution was passed by + the House of Commons by 432 to 147 votes: "That in order to give effect + to the will of the people, as expressed by their elected representatives, + it is necessary that the power of the other House to alter or reject + Bills passed by this House should be so restricted by law as to secure + that within the limits of a single Parliament the final decision of the + Commons shall prevail." This resolution was embodied in the Parliament + Bill of 1911. Between 1907 and 1911 came (1) the rejection of the Budget, + November, 1909; (2) the General Election of January, 1910, and the return + of a majority of 124 (Liberal, Labour, and Irish Nationalist) in support + of the Government; (3) the passing of resolutions (majority, 105) for + limiting the Veto of the Lords; (4) the failure of a joint Conference + between leading Liberals and Conservatives on the Veto question, followed + by (5) the General Election of December, 1910, and the return of the + Liberals with a united majority of 126.</p> + + <p>The Parliament Bill declared that every Money Bill sent up by the + Commons, if not passed unamended by the Lords within a month, should + receive the Royal assent and become an Act of Parliament notwithstanding, + and that every Bill sent up for three successive sessions shall in the + third session become an Act of Parliament without the assent of the + Lords.</p> + + <p>The Lords passed this Bill with amendments which the Commons refused + to accept, and the Parliament Bill was returned to the Lords in August. + But, as in 1832, the Prime Minister announced that he had received + guarantees from the Crown that peers should be created to secure the + passage of the Bill if it was again rejected; and to avoid the making of + some three or four hundred Liberal peers, Lord Lansdowne—following + the example of the Duke of Wellington—advised the Conservatives in + the House of Lords to refrain from opposition. The result of this + abstention was that the Lords' amendments were not persisted in, and the + Bill passed the Lords on August 10th, 1911, by 131 to 114 votes.</p> + + <p>By this Parliament Act the Lords' veto is now strictly limited. The + Lords may reject a Bill for two sessions, but if the Commons persist, + then the Bill passes into law, whether the Lords approve or + disapprove.</p> + + <p>The real grievance against the House of Lords, from the democratic + standpoint, has been that its veto was only used when a Liberal + government was in power. There is not even a pretence by the Upper House + of revising the measures sent from the Commons by a Conservative + ministry; yet over and over again, and especially in the last five years, + Liberal measures have been rejected, or "amended" against the will of the + Commons, by the Lords after the electors have returned the Liberals to + power. The permanent and overwhelming Conservative majority in the Lords + acts on the assumption that a Liberal ministry does not represent the + will of the people, an assumption at variance with the present theory of + democratic government, and in contradiction to the constitutional + practice of the Crown. The great size of the House of Lords makes the + difficulty of dealing with this majority so acute. In 1831 the creation + of forty peerages would have been sufficient to meet the Tory opposition + to the Reform Bill; to-day it is said that about four hundred are + required to give the Liberals a working majority in the Lords. The rapid + making of peers began under George III., but from 1830 to the present day + Prime Minister after Prime Minister has added to the membership of the + House of Lords with generous hand. Satire, savage and contemptuous, has + been directed against the new peers by critics of various opinions, but + still the work of adding to the House of hereditary legislators goes + gaily on, and Liberal Prime Ministers have been as active as their Tory + opponents in adding to the permanent Conservative majority in the Lords; + for only a small minority of Liberal peers retain their allegiance to the + Liberal Party.</p> + + <p>Thackeray gave us his view of the making of peers in the years when + Lord Melbourne and his Whig successors were steadily adding to the Upper + House. (Between 1835 and 1841 Melbourne made forty-four new peers, and + twenty-eight more were added by 1856.)</p> + + <p>"A man becomes enormously rich, or he jobs successfully in the aid of + a Minister, or he wins a great battle, or executes a treaty, or is a + clever lawyer who makes a multitude of fees and ascends the bench; and + the country rewards him for ever with a gold coronet (with more or less + balls or leaves) and a title, and a rank as legislator. 'Your merits are + so great,' says the nation, 'that your children shall be allowed to reign + over us, in a manner. It does not in the least matter that your eldest + son is a fool; we think your services so remarkable that he shall have + the reversion of your honours when death vacates your noble shoes.'"</p> + + <p>J.H. Bernard, in his "Theory of the Constitution" (1835), was no less + emphatic:—</p> + + <p>"As the affair is managed now, the peerage, though sometimes bestowed + as the reward of merit, on men who have adorned particular professions, + is yet much more frequently—nine times out of ten—employed by + the minister of the day as his instrument to serve particular views of + public policy; and is often given to actual demerit—to men who hire + themselves out to do his commands through thick and thin. The peerage is + now full of persons who have obtained possession of it by disreputable + means."</p> + + <p>But in spite of satire and hostile criticism members of the House of + Lords have always enjoyed a considerable social popularity. They are + widely esteemed for their titles, even by those who denounce hereditary + legislators and desire to abolish the Second Chamber.</p> + + <p>Disraeli created six new peers in 1867-8, and seventeen more from 1875 + to 1880, in addition to conferring the earldom of Beaconsfield on + himself. Yet Disraeli had written in "Coningsby" (1844):—</p> + + <p>"We owe the English peerage to three sources: the spoliation of the + Church, the open and flagrant sale of its honours by the elder Stuarts, + and the borough-mongering of our own times. Those are the three main + sources of the existing peerage of England, and, in my opinion, + disgraceful ones."</p> + + <p>Gladstone made fifty peers in his four premierships, and Mr. Herbert + Paul, the Liberal historian of "Modern England," makes the following + comments:—</p> + + <p>"No minister since Pitt had done so much as Mr. Gladstone to enlarge + and thereby to strengthen the House of Lords.</p> + + <p>"Mr. Gladstone was lavish in his distribution of peerages, and rich + men who were politically active, either in the House of Commons or behind + the scenes, might hope to be rewarded with safe seats elsewhere."</p> + + <p><a name="plateVIII"></a></p> + + <div class="figcenter" style="width:66%;"> + <a href="images/plateVIII.jpg"><img width="100%" src="images/plateVIII.jpg" + alt="The Passing of the Parliament Bill in the House of Lords" /></a> + <h4>THE PASSING OF THE PARLIAMENT BILL IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS</h4> + + <i>From the Drawing by S. Begg.</i> + </div> + <p>Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman exceeded all previous records of the last + century by making twenty new peers in less than two years—1905 to + 1907—and Mr. Asquith maintained this vigorous policy by thirteen + new creations in the first year of his premiership. Already many of these + peers, whose titles are not more than six years old, vote with the + Conservatives. Great Britain is now the only country in the world that + combines a democratic form of government with a second chamber of + hereditary legislators, and many proposals are on foot for the reform of + the House of Lords. While the Conservatives are more anxious to change + the constitution of the Upper House, and to make it a stronger and more + representative assembly, the Liberals prefer that its power of veto + should be abolished. No Act of Parliament was required to abolish the + veto of the Crown on Acts of Parliament, but the growth of a democratic + public opinion did not prove strong enough to end the veto of the Lords + on the Bills passed by a Liberal majority in the Commons, and therefore + the Parliament Act was passed.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">The Popularity of the Crown</font></h4> + + <p>The popularity of the Crown has become increasingly wider and more + general in the years that have seen the British people steadily taking up + the work of self-government. The fear of a hostile demonstration by the + inhabitants of London kept William IV. from visiting the Mansion House in + 1830, and the death of that monarch in 1837 evoked no national mourning. + Queen Victoria, unknown to the people on her accession, had the very + great advantage of Lord Melbourne's political advice in the early years + of her reign. Her marriage, in 1840, with the Prince Consort—who + himself learnt much from Melbourne—brought a wise counsellor to the + assistance of the throne. "I study the politics of the day with great + industry," wrote the Prince Consort. "I speak quite openly to the + Ministers on all subjects, and endeavour quietly to be of as much use to + Victoria as I can." The Prince Consort saw quickly that "if monarchy was + to rise in popularity, it could only be by the sovereign leading a good + life, and keeping quite aloof from party." The days of a profligate court + and of "the King's friends" in politics were past and gone; the royal + <i>influence</i> was to succeed the royal <i>prerogative</i>.<a + name="footnotetag87" href="#footnote87"><sup>[87]</sup></a></p> + + <p>The aloofness from political partisanship has been faithfully + maintained by the successors of Queen Victoria, and great as the royal + influence may be in the social life of the wealthier classes, it is + certain that no such influence operates in the casting of votes by the + people at Parliamentary elections. No one suspects the King of desiring + the return of Liberals over Tories, or of favouring the Tory programme + rather than the Liberal; and this neutrality is the surest guarantee of + the continued popularity of the Crown.</p> + + <p>For some years in the late 'seventies and early 'eighties of the + nineteenth century Republicanism was the creed of many ardent + working-class Radicals in England. Charles Bradlaugh was its chief + exponent, and both Mr. Joseph Chamberlain and the late Sir Charles Dilke + were regarded as Republicans before they entered Gladstone's Ministry in + 1880. The Republican movement waned before Bradlaugh's death. He himself + was "led to feel that agitation for an ideal form of government was less + directly fruitful than agitation against the abuses of class privilege; + and in the last dozen years of his life, his political work went mainly + to reforms within the lines of the Constitution."<a name="footnotetag88" + href="#footnote88"><sup>[88]</sup></a></p> + + <p>With the rise of the Socialist movement in England in 1884-5, and the + celebration of the Queen's Jubilee in 1887, Republicanism became utterly + moribund, and nothing save an attempt on the part of the sovereign to + take a definite side in party politics, or a notorious lapse from the + morals required of persons in office of State, could revive it.</p> + + <p>The interest in Socialism was fatal to the Republican movement, + because it turned the enthusiasm of the active spirits in democratic + politics from the desire for radical changes in the <i>form</i> of + government, to the crusade for economic changes, and the belief in a + coming social revolution. The existence of monarchy seemed a small and + comparatively unimportant affair to men and women who were hoping to get + poverty abolished, and the landlords and capitalists expropriated either + by direct revolution, or by the act of a House of Commons, dominated by + working men with Socialist convictions.</p> + + <p>The national celebrations at the Queen's Jubilee in 1887 marked the + beginning of the popular revival in pageantry and official ceremonial. In + the Church of England this revival began some forty years earlier, and it + has, in our day, changed the whole conduct of public worship. The revival + of Roman Catholicism in England with its processions and solemn ritual + has been equally significant. By gratifying the common human instinct for + spectacle and drama the monarchy has gained the popular affections.</p> + + <p>The Whigs scoffed at pageants and symbols; the earlier Puritans had + proscribed ceremonial as savouring of idolatry, and feared any + manifestation of beauty as a snare of the devil. In the latter half of + the nineteenth century, England began to throw off the shackles of + Puritanism, and to lose all interest in Whiggery. The new democracy was + neither coldly Deist, nor austerely Republican. It has shown no + inclination to inaugurate a reign of "pure reason" in religion or + politics, but has boldly and cheerfully adopted symbolism and pageantry. + Friendly societies and trade unions have their badges, banners, and + buttons. The Roman Catholic Church grows in popularity with the working + class, and in many towns and cities the Church of England and the + Salvation Army are distinctly popular. On the other hand, the + Nonconformist churches confess annually to a decreasing membership, and + Secularist and Ethical societies have but the smallest following.</p> + + <p>The royal processions and the pageantry of monarchy have provided a + spectacular display that average human nature enjoys. The symbols and + trappings of monarchy must be shown if the sovereign is to be popular; + they add to the gaiety of life, and people are grateful for the warmth of + colour they impart to our grey streets. The sovereign in encouraging the + renewed and growing love for pageants and ceremonial has discerned the + signs of the times. Modern democracy does not desire that kings or + priests shall rule; but it does require that they shall on State + occasions and in the performance of their office, be clad in kingly and + priestly robes, and by their proceedings enrich the dignity of public + life, and the beauty of public worship.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">The Democratic Ideals: Socialism and Social Reform</font></h4> + + <p>The rise of Socialism in the 'eighties not only diverted the attention + of working-class leaders from political reform, but it substituted for + the destruction of monarchy and the House of Lords a reconstruction of + society as the goal of democracy; and the Socialist teaching has been of + enduring and penetrating influence.</p> + + <p>Fifty years earlier in the nineteenth century, Robert Owen had + preached a Socialist crusade with strenuous persuasion—but, + ignoring politics, he outlived the temporary success of his cause. The + utopian Socialism of Owen flourished and died, as Chartism, under + different treatment, flourished and died.</p> + + <p>The "scientific" Socialism of Karl Marx was planned on stronger + foundations. It brought a message of hope; it revealed how the change was + to be wrought that would "emancipate the workers of the world from the + slavery of wage service"; and it insisted that this change was + inevitable. On the Continent, and more particularly in Germany, the + Social Democratic Party has gained an enormous working-class support, and + every election adds to its strength.</p> + + <p>In England the Social Democratic Federation—now the Social + Democratic Party—was founded in 1884 by Mr. H.M. Hyndman; but in + spite of its untiring efforts, it has never won the sympathy of the trade + unions, nor the confidence of the working-class electorate. Its + Parliamentary candidatures rarely attract attention, and it is not a + force in Labour politics. Nevertheless, indirectly, the influence of the + Social Democratic Party has been very considerable. Mr. John Burns, and + many another Labour leader, have passed through its ranks, and a social + conscience has been made sensitive to the miseries of the poor, largely + by the voices—that will not be silenced—of this comparatively + small company.</p> + + <p>The Fabian Society also began its work of educating public opinion to + Socialism in 1884, but, unlike the Social Democratic Federation, it made + no proposals for the creation of a Socialist Party or the organisation of + the working class into a separate political party. Mainly, its influence + can be seen in the increase of statistical knowledge and of State + interference in the conditions of life and labour in the working + class.</p> + + <p>The Independent Labour Party was not formed till 1892, and while + professing Socialism, it has aimed rather at securing the return of + labour members to Parliament, and to local governing councils than at the + conversion of the working class to a dogmatic social democracy. Often + frankly opportunist and experimental, the Independent Labour Party and + its offspring, the Labour Party in the House of Commons, have followed + the national custom in politics of attacking and redressing evident + evils, and have done this with considerable success.</p> + + <p>But while the Socialists have compelled the attention of all classes + to existing social ills, and have made social reform the chief concern of + all politicians, the idea of a social democracy steadily recedes from the + political vision, and the conscious movement to Socialism falters. + Socialist workmen in Parliament or on city councils soon find themselves + absorbed in the practical work of legislation or administration, and + learn that there is neither leisure nor outlet for revolutionary + propaganda. The engrossing character of public work destroys the old + inclination to break up the existing order, for the Socialist member of + Parliament, or city councillor interested in his work, has become part of + the machinery responsible for the existing order, and without losing his + sympathy for the labouring people is content that the amelioration of + society shall come, as it now seems to him it must come, by slow and + orderly stages and without violence. The very return of so many Labour + members to Parliament and to local councils has damped down the fires of + Socialism, by placing in positions of authority and responsibility, and + thereby withdrawing them from the army of disaffection, the ablest + leaders of the working-class movement. The Labour member who cannot + settle down to legislative or administrative work, but attempts to play + the agitator's part in the House of Commons or the council chamber, is + generally doomed to banishment from official public life, and is allowed + to remain an agitator.</p> + + <p>Mr. John Burns may be denounced as a renegade by Socialist critics, + but a working-class electorate returns him to Parliament. Mr. Cunninghame + Graham and Mr. Victor Grayson may be applauded for their consistency by + Socialist audiences, but working-class constituencies are loth to return + such representatives to the House of Commons.</p> + + <p>As Socialism quietly passes out of the vision of the political world, + and from a definite inspiration to democracy becomes a dim and remote + possibility of the future, Social Reform takes its place. Not only in + Great Britain, but throughout Europe, the social reformers or + "revisionists" are gaining the mastery over the scientific Marxian + Socialists in democratic politics. In Great Britain where "practical," or + experimental, politics have always prevailed over political theory, the + passing of positive Socialist dogma is naturally more obvious. Social + Reform is now the cry of Liberals and Conservatives alike. The old + Liberal doctrines of <i>laissez faire</i>, unrestricted competition, and + the personal liberty of the subject are as dead as the Stuart doctrine of + the divine right of kings. The old Liberal hostility to State + interference in trade or commerce, and to compulsory social legislation + has melted away at the awakened social conscience. It still has its + adherents—Lord Cromer and Mr. Harold Cox repeat the ancient + watch-words of Victorian Liberalism, and they are regarded with a respect + mingled with curiosity, as strange survivals of a far-off age—but + no popular echo follows their utterances. Pensions for the aged, better + provision for the sick and the infirm, a more careful attention to the + well-being of children, national health, some cure for destitution, and + some remedy for unemployment—these are the matters that a Liberal + Government is concerned about to-day. And the Conservatives are no less + sincere in their willingness to help in these matters. Legislative + proposals for social reform are treated as non-party questions, and the + chief item in the Conservative programme, Tariff Reform, was adopted and + is advocated mainly as a social reform, a cure for industrial evils, and + the misery of unemployment.</p> + + <p>Socialism proposed the abolition of poverty, and the common ownership + and control of the land and the means of production, distribution, and + exchange as the solution of economic questions.</p> + + <p>Social Reform proposes to mitigate the hardships of life for the + multitude, and, while leaving land and capital in private hands, to + compel by taxation provision for the wants of the people. Its aim is the + abolition of destitution by State assistance to voluntary effort, and the + gradual raising of the standard of life. It does not propose to remove + the cause of poverty.</p> + + <p>Socialism would place the democracy in possession of the means of + wealth. Social Reform requires the State to tax wealth and provide for + the people. It promises a living wage, decent housing accommodation, an + insurance against unemployment, and security in old age, and leaves the + question of national ownership or private ownership to be settled by + posterity.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Land Reform and the Single Tax</font></h4> + + <p>Apart from the ideals of Socialism, the democratic ideal of a + community owning the full value of its land was presented by Henry + George, an American economist, in 1879, and his book "Progress and + Poverty," was at once received with enthusiasm by certain reformers in + England and America. George visited England in 1881, 1884, and 1889, and + his visits resulted in a strong movement for the taxation of land values. + This movement has been inspired by an ideal of a democratic community as + definite as the Socialist ideal, and it has grown steadily in popular + favour as the justice of a tax on land values has been recognised. + "Progress and Poverty" is the bible of the Land Reformers, as Marx's + "Capital" is (or was) the bible of Socialists. It is claimed that a tax + on land values is the true remedy of social and economic ills, and that + democracy can eradicate the root-cause of poverty by such a tax. In this + belief the followers of Henry George have preached the Single Tax, as it + is called, with unquenchable fervour, and the Liberal Party has been + gradually won over—if not to the Single Tax, at least to a tax on + land values. Many Conservatives, too, favour the taxation of land values + in cities, and all the principal municipalities have petitioned + Parliament in favour of this method of taxation. But it is the democratic + ideals of Henry George that have been the life of the movement for the + Single Tax, and but for these ideals the movement would never have become + a living influence towards democracy, or inspired a social + enthusiasm.</p> + + <p>The charm about the Single Tax propaganda is that its ideals of + democracy do not discourage the practical politician and the average + citizen from supporting what seems a necessary and reasonable proposal. + Without committing themselves at all to Henry George's full scheme for + the total abolition of land monopoly by a tax of twenty shillings in the + pound on all land values, and without abandoning the common British + suspicion of the doctrinaire and the political idealist, the ordinary + shopkeeper and householder are quite of opinion that urban values in land + can be taxed legitimately for the benefit of the community, and that + democracy would do well to decree some moderate tax on land values for + the relief of the overtaxed non-landowner.</p> + + <p>So the taxation of land values is presented by its advocates as a + social reform more radical and democratic than all other social reforms, + as a reform that in fact would make democracy master of its own land, and + the people free from the curse of poverty; and it is accepted by the + great mass of working people as a just and useful method of raising + revenue for local and imperial needs.</p> + + <p>Socialism, social reform, the Single Tax—various are the ideals + of a democratic people at work at the business of government, and various + are the means proposed to establish the democracy in economic + freedom.</p> + + <br clear="all" /> +<hr class="full" /> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTERIX">CHAPTER IX</a></h3> + +<h3>THE WORLD-WIDE MOVEMENT: ITS STRENGTH AND +WEAKNESS</h3> + +<h4><font class="sc">East and West</font></h4> + + <p>The movement towards democracy is world-wide to-day, and the political + constitutions of the West are desired with fervour in the East.</p> + + <p>For generations there has been agitation in Russia for representative + government, and men and women—in countless numbers—have + sacrificed wealth, reputation, liberty, and life itself in the cause of + political freedom. On the establishment in 1906 of the Duma, a national + chamber of elected members, there was general rejoicing, because it + seemed that, at length, autocracy was to give place to representative + government. But the hopes of the political reformers were short lived. + The Duma still exists, but its powers were closely restricted in 1907, + and the franchise has been narrowed, to secure an overwhelming + preponderance of the wealthy, so that it is altogether misleading to + regard it as a popular assembly.</p> + + <p>In Egypt and in India the Nationalist movements are directed to + self-government, and are led by men who have, in most cases, spent some + years at an English University, or have been trained at the English Bar. + Residence in England, and a close study of British politics make the + educated Indian anxious for political rights in his own country, similar + to those that are given to him in Great Britain. In England the Indian + has all the political rights of a British subject. He can vote for a + member of Parliament, he can even be a member of the House of Commons. On + two occasions in recent years, an Indian has been elected to Parliament: + Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji sat as Liberal M.P. for Finsbury, 1892-5; Sir M.M. + Bhownagree as a Conservative for Bethnal Green, 1895-1906. Back in his + native land, the Indian finds that he belongs to a subject race, and that + the British garrison will neither admit him to social equality, nor + permit him the right of legislation. Hence with eyes directed to Western + forms of government, the Indian is discontented with the bureaucracy that + rules his land, and disaffected from the Imperial power. But so many are + the nations in India, and so poverty-stricken is the great multitude of + its peasantry that the Nationalist movement can touch but the fringe of + the population, and the millions of India live patiently and contentedly + under the British Crown. Nevertheless, the national movement grows + steadily in numbers and in influence, for it is difficult for those who, + politically minded, have once known political freedom, to resign + themselves to political subjection.</p> + + <p>In Egypt the Nationalist movement is naturally smaller and more + concentrated than in India and the racial divisions hinder its unity. + Egypt is nominally under the suzerainty of Turkey, though occupied by + Great Britain, and now that Turkey has set up a Constitution and a + Parliament, patriotic Egyptian politicians are impatient at the blocking + out by the British authorities of every proposal for self-government.</p> + + <p>As in India, so in Egypt: it is the men of education who are + responsible for the Nationalist movement. And in both countries it is the + desire to experiment in representative government, to test the + constitutional forms in common use in the West, and to practise the + responsibilities of citizenship, that stimulates the movement. The + unwillingness of the British Government to gratify this desire explains + the hostility to British rule in India and Egypt.</p> + + <p>Japan received a Constitution from the Emperor in 1890, and in 1891 + its Diet was formally opened with great national enthusiasm. It is a + two-chamber Parliament—a Council of nobles, and a popularly elected + assembly—and only in the last few years have the business men given + their attention to it. Although the Cabinet is influenced by Japanese + public opinion, it is not directly responsible to the Diet, but is the + Ministry of the Mikado. The resolution of the Japanese statesmen of forty + years ago to make Japan a world-power made Constitutional Government, in + their eyes, a necessity for the nation.</p> + + <p>In Europe, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark all possess democratic + constitutions, and only the removal of sex disabilities in the latter two + is needed to achieve complete adult suffrage. Finland established + complete democracy nine years ago, and, with equal electoral districts, + complete adult suffrage, and the free election of women equally with men + to its Diet, is a model democratic state. But the liberties of Finland + are gravely threatened by the Russian Government, and there is no + security for the Finns that their excellent self-government will be + preserved. In Germany, with universal manhood suffrage, the struggle is + to make the Government responsible to the elected Reichstag.</p> + + <p>The British self-governing Colonies show a tendency of democracy to + federate. The Australian Colonies are federated into a Commonwealth, and + their example has been followed by the South African Colonies. New + Zealand and Australia are at one in their franchise, which allows no + barrier of sex; but South Africa still restricts the vote to males. In + Australia the working class are in power, and the Commonwealth Prime + Minister is a Labour representative. There is no willingness to grant + political rights to those who are not of European race, either in South + Africa or in Australia; and the universal republic dreamed of by + eighteenth century democrats, a republic which should know no racial or + "colour" bar, is not in the vision of the modern colonial statesmen of + democracy, who are frankly exclusive. Only in New Zealand does a native + race elect its own members to Parliament—and four Maori M.P.'s are + returned.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Tyranny under Democratic Forms</font></h4> + + <p>Experience has proved that democratic and republican forms of + government are no guarantee that the nation possesses political + liberty.</p> + + <p>Mexico, nominally a republic under President Diaz, was in reality a + military autocracy of the severest kind. The South American Republics are + merely unstable monarchies, at the mercy of men who can manipulate the + political machinery and get control of the army.</p> + + <p>It is too early yet to decide whether the constitutional form of + government set up in Turkey in 1908, or the republic created on the + abolition of monarchy in Portugal in 1910, mark national movements to + democracy. In neither country is there evidence that general political + freedom has been the goal of the successful revolutionist, or that the + people have obtained any considerable measure of political power or civil + liberty. Ambitious and unscrupulous men can make full use of republican + and democratic forms to gain political mastery over their less cunning + fellows, and no machinery of government has ever yet been devised that + will safeguard the weak and the foolish from the authority of the strong + and the capable.</p> + + <p>Those who put their trust in theories of popular sovereignty, and urge + the referendum and initiative as the surer instruments of democracy than + Parliamentary representation, may recall that a popular plebiscite + organised by Napoleon in 1802 conferred on him the Consulate for life; + that Louis Napoleon was made President of the French Republic in 1848 by + a popular vote, obtained a new constitution by a plebiscite in 1851, and + a year later arranged another plebiscite which declared him hereditary + Emperor, Napoleon III. France, where naturally Rousseau's theories have + made the deepest impression, has since the Revolution gloried in the + right of the "sovereign people" to overthrow the government, and its + elected representatives have been alternately at the mercy of dictators + and social revolutionists.</p> + + <p>On the whole, the stability of the British Government, rooted in the + main on the traditional belief in the representation of the electorate, + would seem to make more surely for national progress and wider political + liberty than the alternation of revolution and reaction which France has + known in the last hundred and twenty years.</p> + + <p>England has not been without its popular outbursts against what the + American poet called "the never-ending audacity of elected persons," but + these outbursts are commonly accepted as manifestations of intolerable + conditions; and while the outbursts are repressed means are taken by + Government to amend the conditions. When the Government fails to amend + things, the House of Commons takes the matter up; and if the Commons + neglect to do so, then the electors make it plain that amendment and + reform are necessary by returning men to Parliament pledged to change + matters, and by rejecting those who have failed to meet the + situation.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">The Obvious Dangers</font></h4> + + <p>The dangers that threaten democracy are obvious. Universal adult + suffrage, short Parliaments, proportional representation, equal electoral + districts, second ballots—none of these things can insure democracy + against corruption. For a government which rests on the will of a + people—a will expressed by the election of representatives—is + inevitably exposed to all the evils attendant on the unruly wills and + affections of the average man.</p> + + <p>The orator can play upon the feelings of the crowd, and sway + multitudes against a better judgment; and he has greater chance of + working mischief when a referendum or other direct instrument of + democracy is in vogue than he has when government is by elected + representatives. For the party system, itself open to plenty of + criticism, constantly defeats the orator by the superior power of + organisation. Hence it frequently happens at Parliamentary elections that + a candidate whose meetings are enthusiastic and well attended fails + lamentably at the poll. His followers are a crowd; they are not a party. + They do not know each other, and they have not the confidence that comes + of membership in a large society.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Party Government</font></h4> + + <p>If the orator is a menace to the wise decisions of the people by a + referendum, the party organiser and political "boss" can easily be a + curse to representative government on party lines. By all manner of + unholy devices he can secure votes for his candidate and his party, and + he has raised (or lowered) the simple business of getting the people to + choose their representative into the art of electioneering. The triumph + of political principles by the election of persons to carry out those + principles becomes of less importance than the successful working of the + party machine, when the boss and the organiser are conspicuous. Patronage + becomes the method for keeping the party in power, and the promise of + rewards and spoils enables an opposition to defeat the Government and + obtain office. To be outside the party is to lose all chance of sharing + in the spoils, and to take an interest in politics means, under these + circumstances, to expect some consideration in the distribution of + honours.</p> + + <p>The "spoils system" is notorious in America, but in England it has + become practically impossible for a man to take any serious part in + politics except by becoming part of the machine. An independent attitude + means isolation. To belong to a party—Liberal, Unionist, or + Labour—and to criticise its policy, or differ from its leaders, is + resented as impertinence. The machine is master of the man. A troublesome + and dangerous critic is commonly bought or silenced. He is given office + in the Government, or rewarded with a legal appointment; perhaps made a + peer if his tastes are in that direction. A critic who cannot command a + considerable backing among the electorate will probably be driven out of + public life. The disinterested activity in politics that puts the + commonwealth before party gain is naturally discouraged by the party + organisers.</p> + + <p>Yet when public interest in national affairs sinks to the merely + sporting instinct of "backing your candidate" at elections as a horse is + backed at race meetings, and of "shouting for your party" as men shout + for their favourite football team, or sinks still lower to the mercenary + speculation of personal gain or loss on election results, then another + danger comes in—the indifference of the average honest citizen to + all politics, and the cynical disbelief in political honesty.</p> + + <p>The warnings of John Stuart Mill against leaving politics to the + politicians and against the professional position may be quoted:</p> + + <p>"Representative institutions are of little value, and may be a mere + instrument of tyranny or intrigue when the generality of electors are not + sufficiently interested in their own government to give their vote; or, + if they vote at all, do not bestow their suffrages on public grounds, but + sell them for money, or vote at the beck of some one who has control over + them, or whom for private reasons they desire to propitiate. Popular + elections as thus practised, instead of a security against misgovernment, + are but an additional wheel in its machinery."</p> + + <p>Mill himself was a striking example of the entirely disinterested + politician, who, caring a great deal more for principles than for party, + finds little favour with the electors, and less with the party managers, + and retires from politics to the relief of his fellows.</p> + + <p>A general lack of interest in politics can prove fatal to democracy. + The party managers, without the fear of the electorate before their eyes, + will increase the number of salaried officials and strengthen their + position by judicious appointments. Nominally, these inspectors and + officers will be required for the public service, and the appointments + will be justified on patriotic grounds. There will be little criticism in + Parliament, because the party not in power will be anxious to create + similar "jobs" when its own turn comes. Besides, as the public pays for + these officials, there is no drain on the party funds; and this is a + matter of congratulation to party managers, who are always anxious not to + spend more than they can help on the political machinery.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Bureaucracy</font></h4> + + <p>But the horde of officials and inspectors will change democracy into + bureaucracy, and the discovery is sometimes made too late that a land is + ruled by permanent officials, and not by elected representatives. The + elected representatives may sit and pass laws, but the bureaucracy which + administers them will be the real authority.</p> + + <p>It may be an entirely honest and efficient bureaucracy, as free from + political partisanship as our British Civil Service and police-court + magistracy are, but if it is admitted to be outside the jurisdiction of + the House of Commons, and to be under no obedience to local councils, and + if its powers involve a close inquisition into the lives of the people, + and include the right to interfere daily with these lives, then + bureaucracy and not democracy is the actual government.</p> + + <p>A host of salaried political workers—agents, organisers, + secretaries, etc.—will make popular representative government a + mere matter of political rivalry, an affair of "ins and outs," and by + this development of the party system will exclude from active politics + all who are not loyal to the "machine," and are not strong enough to + break it. But a host of public officers—inspectors, clerks, + etc.—paid out of the public funds will do more than pervert + representative government: they will make it subordinate to the permanent + official class; and bureaucracy, once firmly in the saddle, is harder to + get rid of than the absolutism of kings, or the rule of an + aristocracy.</p> + + <p>Yet a permanent Civil Service is better in every way in a democracy + than a Civil Service which lives and dies with a political party, and is + changed with the Cabinet.</p> + + <p>On the whole, the best thing for democracy is that the paid workers in + politics should be as few as possible, and the number of salaried state + officials strictly limited. The fewer the paid political workers, the + fewer people will be concerned to maintain the efficiency of the + political machine, and the more freely will the electorate act in the + choice of its representatives. The fewer the salaried officials of State, + the less inspection and restriction, and the less encouragement to habits + of submission in the people. Democracy must depend on a healthy, robust + sense of personal responsibility in its citizens, and every increase in + the inspectorate tends to diminish this personal responsibility, and to + breed a "servile state" that will fall a willing prey to tyranny and + bureaucracy.</p> + + <p>Nevertheless, whilst in self-defence democracy will avoid increasing + its officials, it will distinguish between officials and employees. It is + bound to add to the number of its employees every year, as its municipal + and imperial responsibilities grow steadily larger, and these employees, + rightly regarded as public servants, cannot threaten to become our + masters.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">Working-Class Ascendancy</font></h4> + + <p>Still one more danger to democracy may be mentioned, and that is the + notion that from the working class must necessarily come our best + rulers.</p> + + <p>"Rulers are not wise by reason of their number or their poverty, or + their reception of a weekly wage instead of a monthly salary or yearly + income. It is worse and more unpleasant and more dangerous to be ruled by + many fools than by one fool, or a few fools. The tyranny of an ignorant + and cowardly mob is a worse tyranny than the tyranny of an ignorant and + cowardly clique or individual.</p> + + <p>"Workers are not respectable or to be considered because they work + more with their hands or feet than with their brains, but because the + work they do is good. If it is not good work they do, they are as + unprofitable as any other wasters. A plumber is not a useful or admirable + creature because he plumbs (if he plumbs ignorantly or dishonestly, he is + often either a manslayer or a murderer), but because he plumbs well, and + saves the community from danger and damp, disease, and fire and water. + Makers of useless machine-made ornaments are, however 'horny-handed,' + really 'anti-social persons,' baneful to the community as far as their + bad work goes; more baneful, possibly, than the consumers of these bad + articles, quite as baneful as the <i>entrepreneurs</i> who employ + them.</p> + + <p>"The only good institutions are those that do good work; the only good + work done is that which produces good results, whether they be direct, as + the plough-man's, or navvy's, or sailor's; or indirect, as the policeman, + or the schoolmaster, or the teacher of good art, or the writer of books + that are worth reading. A man is no better or wiser than others by reason + of his position or lack of position, but by reason of his stronger body, + wiser head, better skill, greater endurance, keener courage."<a + name="footnotetag89" href="#footnote89"><sup>[89]</sup></a></p> + + <p>There it is. Democracy needs for its counsellors, legislators and + ministers, strength, wisdom, skill, endurance and courage, and must get + these qualities in whomsoever they are to be found. Democracy can afford + the widest range of choice in the election of popular representatives, or + it will never reach its full stature.</p> + + <p>In the choice of its representatives, a democracy will do well to + elect those who know the life of the working people, and who share its + toils; just as it will do well to shun the mere talker, and to seek out + for itself candidates for election rather than have candidates thrust + upon its attention by some caucus in London. But the main thing is that + it should first discern men and women of ability and of character and + then elect them for its representatives, rejecting those, it may be of + more dazzling qualities, who are unstable in mind and consumed with + vanity. It would be well if the elected representative were always an + inhabitant of the county or the borough, known to his neighbours, and of + tested worth. True, the prophet is often without honour in his own + country, and a constituency acts wisely in electing a representative of + national repute. But to search for a man of wealth who will subsidise + every club and charitable institution in the constituency, and to rejoice + when such a candidate is procured from some political headquarters, is a + wretched proceeding in a democratic state. The member who buys a + constituency by his gifts will always feel entitled to sell his + constituents should occasion arise.</p> + + <p>Again, the delegate theory of representation can be a danger to + democracy.</p> + + <p>A Parliamentary representative is something better than a mechanical + contrivance for registering the opinions of electors on certain subjects. + Otherwise all Parliamentary debate is a mockery. A representative he is + of the majority of electors, but he must act freely and with initiative. + Often enough he may be constrained to vote, not as many of his + constituents would prefer, but using his own judgment. Of course when the + choice is between obedience to the party whip and the wishes of his + constituents, and personal conviction is with the latter, then at all + costs the decision should be to stand by his constituents, or popular + representation is a delusion.</p> + + <p>To-day the pressure is far greater from the party whips than from the + constituents, especially when in so many cases election expenses are + paid, in part at least, from the party funds. And to overcome this + constant danger to popular representation a sure plan would be the + payment of all necessary election expenses out of the local rates, and + the prohibition by law of all payments by the candidate or by political + associations. When members are paid for their attendance in Parliament, + far better would it be, too, if such payment were made by the + constituents in each case, and not from the national exchequer.<a + name="footnotetag90" href="#footnote90"><sup>[90]</sup></a> Worse than + the delegate theory is the opinion that a representative of the people is + in Parliament chiefly to keep his party in power. Political parties are + inevitable, and they are effective and convenient when principles divide + people. But popular representation is older than a party system of + government, and when it becomes utterly subordinate to the welfare of + parties it is time for a democratic people to realise the possible loss + of their instrument of liberty.</p> + + <p>Great Britain is not partial to groups, it has always broadly been + divided politically into two camps, but a few men of strong independent + judgment are invaluable in a popular assembly. There need be no fear lest + governments totter and fall at the presence of men who dare to take a + line of their own, and to speak out boldly on occasion. The bulk of + members of Parliament will always cleave to their party, as the bulk of + electors do, and the dread of being thought singular is a potent + influence on the average man, in or out of Parliament. Democracy is in + danger of losing the counsel of its best men when it insists that its + representatives must be merely delegates of the electors, without minds + or wills of their own; but it is in greater danger if it allows its + representatives to be nothing but the tools of the party in power or in + opposition. For when Parliamentary representation is confined to those + who are willing to be the mechanical implements of party leaders and + managers, the House of Commons becomes an assembly of place-hunters and + self-seekers, for whom the profession of politics affords the + gratification of vanity or enrichment at the public expense. In such an + assembly the self-respecting man with a laudable willingness to serve the + State is conspicuous by his absence.</p> + + <p>With a Press in the hands of party politicians, and with editors and + journalists engaged to write up their party through thick and thin, and + to write down every honest effort at political independence of mind, the + danger of losing from all political service the few rare minds that can + ill be spared is a very real and present danger.</p> + +<h4><font class="sc">On Behalf of Democracy</font></h4> + + <p>"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance," and often enough we sleep + at our vigils. But when all the dangers and difficulties that beset + democracy are enumerated, and all its weak spots are laid bare, we can + still hold democracy to be the only suitable form of government for + persons possessing free will, and the representation of the people the + most satisfactory expression of democracy.</p> + + <p>Government by autocrat, by despotism, benevolent or otherwise, by + expert officials, or by an oligarchy of superior intelligences is irksome + to the average man or woman of reasonable education, and in each case has + been intolerable to the British people. They have all been tried and + found wanting—royal absolutism, aristocracy, military dictatorship, + and only of late have we been threatened by an expert bureaucracy.</p> + + <p>Parliamentary representation adapted, by the removal of disabilities + of creed and rank and income, to meet the demands of the nation, has been + proved by experience a clumsy but useful weapon for checking oppression. + Nowadays, we are using it less for defence against oppression, or as an + instrument for removing political grievances, and are testing its worth + for the provision of positive social reform. More and more it is required + of Parliament that means be found for getting rid of the ills around us, + for preventing disease and destitution, for promoting health and + decency.</p> + + <p>And just because legislation is, at the prompting of a social + conscience, invading our homes and workshops, penetrating into prisons, + workhouses, and hospitals, touching the lives of all of us from the + cradle to the grave, the more imperative is it that our legislators + should be chosen freely by the widest electorate of men and women. We + fall back on the old maxim: "That which touches all shall be approved by + all," and can perceive no other way of obtaining that general approbation + for the laws than by the popular election of our representatives.</p> + + <p>Demagogues may exploit the popular will, the cunning and unscrupulous + in power may have us at their mercy, in our folly and indifference the + nation may be brought to grave losses; but still there is always the + means of recovery for the well-disposed while the vote remains in their + hands.</p> + + <p>So it is that, in spite of obvious failings and shortcomings, + democracy by representative government remains for nations throughout the + world that have not yet tried it the goal of their political striving. We + are alive to the imperfections of democracy. It is no automatic machine + for conferring benefits in return for taxes. It is the creation of + mankind, not a revelation from heaven; and it needs, like all good human + things, constant attention and can bear many improvements. It has to be + adjusted from time to time to suit the growing capacities of + mankind—as the popular assembly gave way to the representative + assembly—and only on the failure to make the adjustment does it get + rusty and out of order. It has to meet the requirements of vast empires + and mighty confederations of states, and to fulfil the wants of small + republics and parish councils.</p> + + <p>What but democracy can answer to the call for political liberty that + sounds from so many lands and in so many varying tongues? Did any other + form of government devised by the wit of man make such universal + appeal?</p> + + <p>And when all is said and done—what does this democracy, this + government by popular representatives, mean, but government by the + consent of the governed—the only form of government tolerable to + civilised mankind in the twentieth century?</p> + + <p>Given a fairly good standard of common honesty in the ordinary + dealings of life, and the honesty of our public life, whether in + Parliament or in the Civil Service, in executive or administration, will + serve. If the private and commercial life is corroded with dishonesty, + then democracy will be bitten by knaves and rascals. For our chosen + rulers have a way of faithfully reflecting the morality of their + electors, and are not free to indulge their fancies, as kings of old + were.</p> + + <p>Politics are not, and never will be, or ought to be, the chief + interest and concern of the mass of people in a healthy community where + slavery is extinct. And democracy makes no demand that would involve such + interest and concern. The choice of honest representatives, persons of + goodwill, and reasonable intelligence, is no tremendous task in a + community where honesty, goodwill, and intelligence prevail. And if these + things do not prevail, if honesty is contemned in business, and goodwill + between man and man despised, and intelligence frowned upon, then it is + of small importance what the government of such a nation is, for that + nation is doomed, and it is well for the world that it should be + doomed.</p> + + <p>But, on the whole, it seems indisputable that the common people of the + great nations do cleave to honesty and goodwill, and that the desire for + intelligence is being widely fostered. As long, then, as we can count on + honesty, goodwill, and intelligence in our streets and market-places, as + we can to-day, mankind does well to elect its representatives to council + and Parliament and proclaim democracy—"Government of the people, by + the people, for the people"—as the proper government for + mankind.</p> + + <br clear="all" /> +<hr class="full" /> + +<h3>Notes.</h3> + +<div class="note"> + <p><a name="footnote1" href="#footnotetag1">[1]</a> We cannot be sure + about the constitution of the Witenagemot. The evidence is conflicting, + and, at best, we can only offer a statement of opinion.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote2" href="#footnotetag2">[2]</a> "The parish was the + community of the township organised for Church purposes and subject to + Church discipline, with a constitution which recognised the rights of the + whole body as an aggregate, and the right of every adult member, + <i>whether man or woman</i>, to a voice in self-government, but at the + same time kept the self-governing community under a system of inspection + and restraint by a central authority outside the parish + boundaries."—Bishop Hobhouse, <i>Somerset Record Society</i>, Vol. + IV.</p> + + <p>"The community had its own assembly—the parish + meeting—which was a deliberative assembly. It had its own officers, + who might be either men or women, duly elected, sometimes for a year, + sometimes for life, but in all cases subject to being dismissed for + flagrant offences. The larger number of these officials had well-defined + duties to discharge, and were paid for their services out of funds + provided by the parishioners."—<font class="sc">Dr. Jessopp</font>, + <i>Before the Great Pillage</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote3" href="#footnotetag3">[3]</a> Radmer, <i>Life of + Anselm</i>. (Rolls Series.)</p> + + <p><a name="footnote4" href="#footnotetag4">[4]</a> "The boldness of + Anselm's attitude not only broke the tradition of ecclesiastical + servitude, but infused through the nation at large a new spirit of + independence."—<font class="sc">J.R. Green</font>, <i>History of + the English People</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote5" href="#footnotetag5">[5]</a> "For as long as any + one in all the land was said to hold any power except through him, even + in the things of God, it seemed to him that the royal dignity was + diminished."—<font class="sc">Eadmer</font>, <i>Life of + Anselm</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote6" href="#footnotetag6">[6]</a> See Palgrave's + <i>History of Normandy and England</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote7" href="#footnotetag7">[7]</a> "A martyr he clearly + was, not merely to the privileges of the Church or to the rights of the + See of Canterbury, but to the general cause of law and order as opposed + to violence."—<font class="sc">Freeman</font>, <i>Historical + Essays</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote8" href="#footnotetag8">[8]</a> <i>See</i> Campbell's + <i>Lives of the Chancellors</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote9" href="#footnotetag9">[9]</a> F. York Powell, + <i>England to 1509</i>.</p> + + <p>"Ecclesiastical privileges were not so exclusively priestly privileges + as we sometimes fancy. They sheltered not only ordained ministers, but + all ecclesiastical officers of every kind; the Church courts also claimed + jurisdiction in the causes of widows and orphans. In short, the + privileges for which Thomas contended transferred a large part of the + people, and that the most helpless part, from the bloody grasp of the + King's courts to the milder jurisdiction of the bishop."—<font + class="sc">Freeman</font>, <i>Historical Essays</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote10" href="#footnotetag10">[10]</a> Walter of + Coventry. (Rolls Series.)</p> + + <p><a name="footnote11" href="#footnotetag11">[11]</a> Roger of Wendover. + (Rolls Series.)</p> + + <p><a name="footnote12" href="#footnotetag12">[12]</a> "Clause by clause + the rights of the commons are provided for as well as the rights of the + nobles; the interest of the freeholder is everywhere coupled with that of + the barons and knights; the stock of the merchant and the wainage of the + villein are preserved from undue severity of amercement as well as the + settled estate of the earldom or barony. The knight is protected against + the compulsory exaction of his services, and the horse and cart of the + freeman against the irregular requisition even of the + sheriff."—<font class="sc">Stubbs</font>, <i>Constitutional + History</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote13" href="#footnotetag13">[13]</a> "Quod Anglicana + Ecclesia libera sit."—<i>Magna Charta</i>, I.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote14" href="#footnotetag14">[14]</a> "This most + important provision may be regarded as a summing-up of the history of + Parliament so far as it can be said yet to exist. It probably contains + nothing which had not been for a long time in theory a part of the + Constitution: the kings had long consulted their council on taxation; + that council consisted of the elements that are here specified. But the + right had never yet been stated in so clear a form, and the statement + thus made seems to have startled even the barons.... It was for the + attainment of this right that the struggles of the reign of Henry III. + were carried on; and the realisation of the claim was deferred until the + reign of his successor. In these clauses the nation had now obtained a + comparatively clear definition of the right on which their future + political power was to be based."—<font class="sc">Stubbs</font>, + <i>Constitutional History</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote15" href="#footnotetag15">[15]</a> "Ut quod omnes + similiter tangit ab omnibus approbetur."</p> + + <p><a name="footnote16" href="#footnotetag16">[16]</a> Stubbs, + <i>Constitutional History</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote17" href="#footnotetag17">[17]</a> Stubbs, + <i>Ibid</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote18" href="#footnotetag18">[18]</a> "Analogous + examples may be taken from the practice of the ecclesiastical assemblies, + in which the representative theory is introduced shortly before it finds + its way into parliament."—<font class="sc">Stubbs</font>, + <i>Constitutional History</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote19" href="#footnotetag19">[19]</a> Stubbs, + <i>Constitutional History</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote20" href="#footnotetag20">[20]</a> Stubbs, + <i>Constitutional History</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote21" href="#footnotetag21">[21]</a> F. York Powell, + <i>England to 1509</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote22" href="#footnotetag22">[22]</a> Sir Courtenay + Ilbert, <i>Parliament</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote23" href="#footnotetag23">[23]</a> Ilbert, + <i>Parliament</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote24" href="#footnotetag24">[24]</a> Bagehot, <i>The + English Constitution</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote25" href="#footnotetag25">[25]</a> Bagehot, + <i>Ibid</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote26" href="#footnotetag26">[26]</a> Stubbs, + <i>Constitutional History</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote27" href="#footnotetag27">[27]</a> Stubbs, + <i>Constitutional History</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote28" href="#footnotetag28">[28]</a> Andrew Marvell, + the poet, who sat for Hull in the reign of Charles II., was paid by the + mayor and aldermen of the borough. In return Marvell wrote letters + describing passing events in London. There are stray cases of the payment + of members in the early years of the eighteenth century. Four shillings a + day, including the journey to and from London, for the knight of the + shire, and two shillings a day for the borough member were the wages + fixed by law in 1323.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote29" href="#footnotetag29">[29]</a> Stubbs, + <i>Constitutional History</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote30" href="#footnotetag30">[30]</a> Bagehot, <i>The + English Constitution</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote31" href="#footnotetag31">[31]</a> <i>See</i> Stopes' + <i>British Freewomen</i> for a full examination of this matter.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote32" href="#footnotetag32">[32]</a> Stubbs, + <i>Constitutional History</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote33" href="#footnotetag33">[33]</a> For the last fifty + years the political influence of London has been less than that of the + manufacturing districts.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote34" href="#footnotetag34">[34]</a> "The project was + clearly to set up a new order of things founded on social + equality—a theory which in the whole history of the Middle Ages + appears for the first time in connection with this movement."—<font + class="sc">Dr. Gairdner</font>, <i>Introduction to Paston + Letters</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote35" href="#footnotetag35">[35]</a> Four centuries + later and this doctrine of all men having been born free at the beginning + was to be preached again in popular fashion by Rousseau and find + expression in American Independence and the French Revolution.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote36" href="#footnotetag36">[36]</a> Froissart seems to + be chiefly responsible for the notion, found in the writings of later + historians, that this John Tyler was the leader of the revolt, and for + the confusion that mistakenly identifies him with Wat Tyler, of + Maidstone, the real leader. Three other Tylers are mentioned in the + records of the Peasant Revolt—Walter, of Essex, and two of the City + of London.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote37" href="#footnotetag37">[37]</a> Hallam, <i>Middle + Ages</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote38" href="#footnotetag38">[38]</a> This law of + Winchester was the statute of Edward I., 1285, which authorised local + authorities to appoint constables and preserve the peace. According to a + statement made by Jack Straw, Tyler and his lieutenants intended, amongst + other things, to get rid of the King's Council, and make each county a + self-governing commune.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote39" href="#footnotetag39">[39]</a> There are some + grounds for believing that a plot had been made to slay Wat Tyler at + Smithfield. <i>See</i> Dr. G. Kriehn <i>American Review</i>, 1902.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote40" href="#footnotetag40">[40]</a> F. York Powell, + <i>England to 1509</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote41" href="#footnotetag41">[41]</a> Durrant Cooper, + <i>John Cade's Followers in Kent</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote42" href="#footnotetag42">[42]</a> "These lords found + him sober in talk, wise in reasoning, arrogant in heart, and stiff in + opinions; one who by no means would dissolve his army, except the King in + person would come to him, and assent to the things he would + require."—<font class="sc">Holinshed</font>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote43" href="#footnotetag43">[43]</a> Stow.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote44" href="#footnotetag44">[44]</a> "Whereof he (Cade) + lost the people's favour and hearts. For it was to be thought if he had + not executed that robbery he might have gone far and brought his purpose + to good effect."—<font class="sc">Fabyan's</font> + <i>Chronicle</i>.</p> + + <p>"And for this the hearts of the citizens fell from him, and every + thrifty man was afraid to be served in likewise, for there was many a man + in London that awaited and would fain have seen a common + robbery."—<font class="sc">Stow</font>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote45" href="#footnotetag45">[45]</a> "During the + period, which may be roughly defined as from 1450 to 1550, enclosure + meant to a large extent the actual dispossession of the tenants by their + manorial lords. This took place either in the form of the violent ousting + of the sitting tenant, or of a refusal on the death of one tenant to + admit the son, who in earlier centuries would have been treated as his + natural successor. Proofs abound."—<font class="sc">W.J. + Ashley</font>, <i>Economic History</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote46" href="#footnotetag46">[46]</a> <i>See</i> Dr. + Jessop, <i>The Great Pillage</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote47" href="#footnotetag47">[47]</a> "That a populous + and wealthy city like Norwich should have been for three weeks in the + hands of 20,000 rebels, and should have escaped utter pillage and ruin, + speaks highly for the rebel leaders."—<font class="sc">W. + Rye</font>, <i>Victoria County History of Norfolk</i>.</p> + + <p>"Robert Ket was not a mere craftsman: he was a man of substance, the + owner of several manors; his conduct throughout was marked by + considerable generosity; nor can the name of patriot be denied to him who + deserted the class to which he might have belonged or aspired, and cast + in his lot with the suffering people."—<font class="sc">Canon + Dixon</font>, <i>History of the Church of England</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote48" href="#footnotetag48">[48]</a> "There was + something in the temper of these celebrated men which secured them + against the proverbial inconstancy both of the Court and of + individuals.... No Parliament attacked their influence. No mob coupled + their names with any odious grievance.... They were, one and all, + Protestants. But ... none of them chose to run the smallest personal risk + during the reign of Mary. No men observed more accurately the signs of + the times.... Their fidelity to the State was incorruptible. No intrigue, + no combination of rivals could deprive them of the confidence of their + Sovereign."—<font class="sc">Macaulay</font>, <i>Burleigh, his + Times.</i></p> + + <p><a name="footnote49" href="#footnotetag49">[49]</a> "The Tudor + monarchs exercised freely their power of creating boroughs by charter. + They used their Parliaments, and had to find means of controlling them. + In the creation of 'pocket' or 'rotten' boroughs, Queen Elizabeth was + probably the worst offender. She had much influence in her Duchy of + Cornwall, and many of the Cornish boroughs which obtained such a + scandalous reputation in later times were created by her for the return + of those whom the lords of her council would consider 'safe' + men."—<font class="sc">Ilbert</font>, <i>Parliament.</i></p> + + <p><a name="footnote50" href="#footnotetag50">[50]</a> Elizabeth's + popularity steadily diminished in her last years. The death of Essex, + ecclesiastical persecutions, increased taxation, and the irritations + caused by royal expenditure were all responsible for the discontent. + James I. failed from the first to secure the goodwill of the people.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote51" href="#footnotetag51">[51]</a> Oxford men all + three. Sir John Eliot was at Exeter College, 1607; John Hampden at + Magdalen, 1609; and John Pym at Broadgate Hall (later called Pembroke), + 1599.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote52" href="#footnotetag52">[52]</a> Clarendon, + <i>History of the Great Rebellion</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote53" href="#footnotetag53">[53]</a> "The same men who, + six months before, were observed to be of very moderate tempers, and to + wish that gentle remedies might be applied, talked now in another dialect + both of Kings and persons; and said that they must now be of another + temper than they were the last Parliament."—<font + class="sc">Clarendon</font>, <i>ibid.</i></p> + + <p><a name="footnote54" href="#footnotetag54">[54]</a> Macaulay, + <i>Hallam's Constitutional History</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote55" href="#footnotetag55">[55]</a> "The great rule of + Cromwell was a series of failures to reconcile the authority of the + 'single person' with the authority of Parliament."—<font + class="sc">Ilbert</font>, <i>Parliament</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote56" href="#footnotetag56">[56]</a> "A very large + number of persons regarded the struggle with indifference.... In one + case, the inhabitants of an entire county pledged themselves to remain + neutral. Many quietly changed with the times (as people changed with the + varying fortunes of York and Lancaster). That this sentiment of + neutrality was common to the greater mass of the working classes is + obvious from the simultaneous appearance of the club men in different + parts of the country with their motto: 'If you take our cattle, we will + give you battle.'"—<font class="sc">G.P. Gooch</font>, <i>History + of Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote57" href="#footnotetag57">[57]</a> See <i>Memorial of + English Affairs</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote58" href="#footnotetag58">[58]</a> "By its + injudicious treatment of the most popular man in England, Parliament was + arraying against itself a force which only awaited an opportunity to + sweep it away."—<font class="sc">G.P. Gooch</font>, <i>History of + Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote59" href="#footnotetag59">[59]</a> "So die the + Leveller corporals. Strong they, after their sort, for the liberties of + England; resolute to the very death."—<font + class="sc">Carlyle</font>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote60" href="#footnotetag60">[60]</a> "Then ensued a + scene, the like of which had in all probability never been witnessed in + an English court of justice, and was never again to be witnessed till the + seven bishops were freed by the verdict of a jury from the rage of James + II."—<font class="sc">S.R. Gardiner</font>, <i>History of the + Commonwealth</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote61" href="#footnotetag61">[61]</a> Professor C.H. + Firth, Lilburne in <i>Dict. Nat. Biography</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote62" href="#footnotetag62">[62]</a> Winstanley's + <i>New Law of Righteousness</i>, 1649.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote63" href="#footnotetag63">[63]</a> Palgrave. + Introduction to Erskine May, <i>Parliamentary Practice</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote64" href="#footnotetag64">[64]</a> Sir John Eliot, + 1629.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote65" href="#footnotetag65">[65]</a> Edward II., in + 1327, and Richard II., in 1399, had not been deposed without the consent + of Parliament.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote66" href="#footnotetag66">[66]</a> "The monarchical + regime which was revived under Charles II. broke down under James II. It + was left for the 'glorious Revolution' of 1688, and for the Hanoverian + dynasty, to develop the ingenious system of adjustments and compromises + which is now known, sometimes as cabinet government, sometimes as + parliamentary government."—<font class="sc">Ilbert</font>, + <i>Parliament</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote67" href="#footnotetag67">[67]</a> G.P. Gooch, + <i>Annals of Politics and Culture</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote68" href="#footnotetag68">[68]</a> Palmerston's + influence in the House of Commons was about as bad in the nineteenth + century.—<i>See</i> <font class="sc">Bagehot</font>, <i>The English + Constitution</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote69" href="#footnotetag69">[69]</a> "Here and there we + find an eminent man, whose public services were so notorious that it was + impossible to avoid rewarding them; but putting aside those who were in a + manner forced upon the Sovereign, it would be idle to deny that the + remainder and, of course, the overwhelming majority, were marked by a + narrowness and illiberality of sentiment, which, more than anything else, + brought the whole order into contempt. No great thinkers, no great + writers, no great orators, no great statesman, none of the true nobility + of the land, were to be found among those spurious nobles created by + George III. Nor were the material interests of the country better + represented. Among the most important men in England those engaged in + banking and commerce held a high place; since the end of the seventeenth + century their influence had rapidly increased.... But in the reign of + George III. claims of this sort were little heeded."—<font + class="sc">Buckle</font>, <i>History of Civilisation</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote70" href="#footnotetag70">[70]</a> "They, the friars, + and especially the Franciscans, largely influenced politics. The + conception of individual freedom, upon which the life of St. Francis was + built, went far to instil the idea of civic freedom into men's minds.... + It was the ideas of the friars that found expression in the Baron's War." + The Song of the Battle of Lewes "set forth unmistakably the conception of + the official position of the King, and affirmed the right of his subjects + to remove evil counsellors from his neighbourhood, and to remind him of + his duty—ideas due to the political influence of the + Franciscans."—<font class="sc">Creighton</font>, <i>Historical + Lectures and Addresses</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote71" href="#footnotetag71">[71]</a> The late Lord + Acton pointed out that St. Thomas Aquinas was really the first Whig.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote72" href="#footnotetag72">[72]</a> See Introduction + to Rousseau's <i>Social Contract</i>, by H. J. Tozer.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote73" href="#footnotetag73">[73]</a> "That which + distinguishes the French Revolution from other political movements is + that it was directed by men who had adopted certain speculative a priori + conceptions with the fanaticism and proselytising fervour of a religious + belief, and the Bible of their Creed was the <i>Contrat Social</i> of + Rousseau."—<font class="sc">Lecky</font>, <i>England in Eighteenth + Century</i>, Vol. V.</p> + + <p>"The original contract seized on as a watchword by Rousseau's + enthusiasm grew from an arid fiction into a great and dangerous deceit of + nations."—Sir <font class="sc">F. Pollock</font>, <i>History of the + Science of Politics</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote74" href="#footnotetag74">[74]</a> Mr. H.J. Tozer. + Introduction to Rousseau's <i>Social Contract</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote75" href="#footnotetag75">[75]</a> See Conway's + <i>Life of Paine</i>, Vol. I.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote76" href="#footnotetag76">[76]</a> Professor T.F. + Tout, <i>England from 1689</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote77" href="#footnotetag77">[77]</a> Tout, + <i>ibid.</i></p> + + <p><a name="footnote78" href="#footnotetag78">[78]</a> Tout, + <i>ibid.</i></p> + + <p><a name="footnote79" href="#footnotetag79">[79]</a> R.G. Gammage, + <i>History of the Chartist Movement</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote80" href="#footnotetag80">[80]</a> "The condition of + the labouring classes was the least satisfactory feature of English life + in 1846. Politically they were dumb, for they had no parliamentary votes. + Socially they were depressed, though their lot had been considerably + improved by an increased demand for labour and by the removal of taxes in + Peel's great Budget of 1842. That was the year in which the misery of the + English proletariat reached its lowest depth."—<font + class="sc">Herbert Paul</font>, <i>History of Modern England</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote81" href="#footnotetag81">[81]</a> Justin McCarthy, + <i>Short History of Our Own Times</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote82" href="#footnotetag82">[82]</a> McCarthy, + <i>Ibid</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote83" href="#footnotetag83">[83]</a> Tout, <i>England + since 1689</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote84" href="#footnotetag84">[84]</a> "For a general + extension of the franchise, an extension from the occupation franchise to + the adult franchise, there does not appear to be any demand, except in + connection with the burning question of the franchise for + women."—<font class="sc">Ilbert</font>, <i>Parliament</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote85" href="#footnotetag85">[85]</a> "On the mere + numerical basis Ireland is much over-represented, but Ireland claims to + be treated as a separate entity, and her claims cannot be + disregarded."—<font class="sc">Ilbert</font>, + <i>Parliament</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote86" href="#footnotetag86">[86]</a> Rt. Hon. A.J. + Balfour, M.P., House of Commons, 1910.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote87" href="#footnotetag87">[87]</a> "With great tact, + and without very much friction, he brought the monarchy into touch with + the state of things brought about by the Reform Bill. He did for the + Crown what Wellington did for the House of Lords. Just as the Duke saw + that the Lords must give up setting themselves against the national will + strongly expressed, so did the Prince see that the Crown could no longer + exercise those <i>legal</i> rights for which George III. had fought so + manfully. Like the Lords, the Crown now became a checking and regulating, + rather than a moving, force. It remained as the pledge and symbol of the + unity and continuity of the national life, and could do good work in + tempering the evils of absolute party government. Such of the royal + <i>prerogatives</i> as were not dead must be carried out by ministers. + The royal <i>influence</i> continued to run through every branch of the + State."—Professor <font class="sc">T.F. Tout</font>, <i>England + from 1689.</i></p> + + <p><a name="footnote88" href="#footnotetag88">[88]</a> Mr. J.M. + Robertson, M.P., <i>Charles Bradlaugh—A Record of His Life and + Work</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote89" href="#footnotetag89">[89]</a> F. York Powell, + <i>Thoughts on Democracy</i>.</p> + + <p><a name="footnote90" href="#footnotetag90">[90]</a> Unfortunately the + present House of Commons has just decided, August, 1911, to pay its + members a salary of £400 a year from the national revenue. It is to be + regretted that the cost has not been laid directly on the electors, and + that the time is not more appropriate. With the country torn with strikes + of workmen seeking a few extra shillings a week, it was hardly the + opportune moment for a House of Commons to vote itself some £250,000 a + year. The proposal would have been more palatable to the nation if the + Commons had decided that payment should begin with the <i>next</i> + Parliament.</p> + +</div> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="pg" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RISE OF THE DEMOCRACY***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 19609-h.txt or 19609-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/6/0/19609">http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/6/0/19609</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Rise of the Democracy + + +Author: Joseph Clayton + + + +Release Date: October 23, 2006 [eBook #19609] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RISE OF THE DEMOCRACY*** + + +E-text prepared by Afra Ullah, Keith Edkins, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 19609-h.htm or 19609-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/6/0/19609/19609-h/19609-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/6/0/19609/19609-h.zip) + + + + + +THE RISE OF THE DEMOCRACY + +by + +JOSEPH CLAYTON + +Author of "Leaders of the People" "Bishops as Legislators," etc. etc. + +With Eight Full-Page Plates + + + + + + + +Cassell and Company, Ltd. +London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne +1911 +All Rights Reserved + + +[Illustration: KING JOHN GRANTING MAGNA CHARTA + +From the Fresco in the Royal Exchange, by Ernest Normand. + +_By permission of Messrs. S. Hildesheimer & Co., Ltd._] + + + + + +PREFACE + +This short account of the rise of political democracy is necessarily but an +outline of the matter, and while it is not easy to define the exact limits, +there is no difficulty in noting omissions. For instance, there is scarcely +any reference to the work of poets or pamphleteers. John Ball's rhyming +letters are quoted, but not the poems of Langland, and the political songs +of the Middle Ages are hardly mentioned. The host of political pamphleteers +in the seventeenth century are excluded, with the exception of Lilburne and +Winstanley, whose work deserves better treatment from posterity than it +received from contemporaries. Defoe's vigorous services for the Whigs are +unnoticed, and the democratic note in much of the poetry of Burns, Blake, +Byron and Shelley is left unconsidered, and the influence of these poets +undiscussed. The anti-Corn Law rhymes of Ebenezer Eliot, and the Chartist +songs of Ernest Jones were notable inspirations in their day, and in our +own times Walt Whitman and Mr. Edward Carpenter have been the chief singers +of democracy. But a whole volume at least might be written on the part the +pen has played in the struggle towards democracy. + +Again, there is no mention of Ireland in this short sketch. A Nationalist +movement is not necessarily a democratic movement, and the Irish +Nationalist Party includes men of very various political opinions, whose +single point of agreement is the demand for Home Rule. In India and Egypt +the agitation is for representative institutions. Ireland might, or might +not, become a democracy under Home Rule--who can say? + +The aim of the present writer has been to trace the travelled road of the +English people towards democracy, and to point out certain landmarks on +that road, in the hope that readers may be turned to examine more closely +for themselves the journey taken. For the long march teems with adventure +and spirited enterprise; and, noting mistakes and failures in the past, we +may surely and wisely, and yet with greater daring and finer courage, +pursue the road, not unmindful of the charge committed to us in the +centuries left behind. + + J.C. + + HAMPSTEAD, + _September, 1911._ + + + + +CONTENTS + +INTRODUCTION + +The British Influence--"Government of the People, by the People, for the +People"--The Foundations of Democracy--British Democracy Experimental not +Doctrinaire--Education to Democracy + +CHAPTER I + +THE EARLY STRUGGLES AGAINST THE ABSOLUTISM OF THE CROWN + +The Great Churchmen--Archbishop Anselm and Norman Autocracy--Thomas a +Becket and Henry II.--Stephen Langton and John--The Great Charter + +CHAPTER II + +THE BEGINNING OF PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION + +Democracy and Representative Government--Representative Theory First found +in Ecclesiastical Assemblies--The Misrule of Henry III.--Simon of Montfort, +Leader of the National Party--Edward I.'s Model Parliament, 1295--The +Nobility Predominant in Parliament--The Medieval National Assemblies--The +Electors of the Middle Ages--Payment of Parliamentary Representatives--The +Political Position of Women in the Middle Ages--No Theory of Democracy in +the Middle Ages + +CHAPTER III + +POPULAR INSURRECTION IN ENGLAND + +General Results of Popular Risings--William FitzOsbert, 1196--The Peasant +Revolt and its Leaders, 1381--Jack Cade, Captain of Kent, 1450--The Norfolk +Rising under Ket, 1549 + +CHAPTER IV + +THE STRUGGLE RENEWED AGAINST THE CROWN + +Parliament under the Tudors--Victory of Parliament over the Stuarts--The +Democratic Protest: Lilburne--Winstanley and "The Diggers"--The Restoration + +CHAPTER V + +CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT--ARISTOCRACY TRIUMPHANT + +Government by Aristocrats--Civil and Religious Liberty--Growth of Cabinet +Rule--Walpole's rule--The Change in the House of Lords--"Wilkes and +Liberty" + +CHAPTER VI + +THE RISE OF THE DEMOCRATIC IDEA + +The Witness of the Middle Ages--The "Social Contract" Theory--Thomas +Hobbes--John Locke--Rousseau and French Revolution--American +Independence--Thomas Paine--Major Cartwright and the "Radical +Reformers"--Thomas Spence--Practical Politics and Democratic Ideals + +CHAPTER VII + +PARLIAMENTARY REFORM AND THE ENFRANCHISEMENT OF THE PEOPLE + +The Industrial Revolution--The Need for Parliamentary Reform--Manufacturing +Centres Unrepresented in Parliament--The Passage of the Great Reform +Bill--The Working Class still Unrepresented--Chartism--The Hyde Park +Railings, 1866--Household Suffrage--Working-class Representation in +Parliament--Removal of Religious Disabilities: Catholics, Jews and +Freethinkers--The Enfranchisement of Women + +CHAPTER VIII + +DEMOCRACY AT WORK + +Local Government--The Workman in the House of Commons--Working-class +Leaders in Parliament--The Present Position of the House of Lords--The +Popularity of the Crown--The Democratic Ideals: Socialism and Social +Reform--Land Reform and the Single Tax + +CHAPTER IX + +THE WORLD-WIDE MOVEMENT: ITS STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS + +East and West--Tyranny under Democratic Forms--The Obvious Dangers--Party +Government--Bureaucracy--Working-Class Ascendancy--On Behalf of Democracy + +LIST OF PLATES + + KING JOHN GRANTING MAGNA CHARTA + + MAGNA CHARTA--A FACSIMILE OF THE ORIGINAL IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM + + SIR JOHN ELIOT + + JOHN HAMPDEN + + THE GORDON RIOTS + + THE RIGHT HON. JOHN BURNS, M.P. + + THE RIGHT HON. D. LLOYD GEORGE, M.P. + + THE PASSING OF THE PARLIAMENT BILL IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS + + + + + +THE RISE OF THE DEMOCRACY + +INTRODUCTION + +THE BRITISH INFLUENCE + +Our business here is to give some plain account of the movement towards +democracy in England, only touching incidentally on the progress of that +movement in other parts of the world. Mainly through British influences the +movement has become world wide; and the desire for national +self-government, and the adoption of the political instruments of +democracy--popular enfranchisement and the rule of elected +representatives--are still the aspirations of civilised man in East and +West. The knowledge that these forms of democratic government have by no +means at all times and in all places proved successful does not check the +movement. As the British Parliament and the British Constitution have in +the past been accepted as a model in countries seeking free political +institutions, so to-day our Parliament and our Constitutional Government +are still quoted with approval and admiration in those lands where these +institutions are yet to be tried. + +The rise of democracy, then, is a matter in which Britain is largely +concerned; and this in spite of the fact that in England little respect and +less attention has been paid to the expounders of democracy and their +constructive theories of popular government. The notion that philosophers +are the right persons to manage affairs of state and hold the reins of +Government has always been repugnant to the English people, and, with us, +to call a man "a political theorist" is to contemn him. The English have +not moved towards democracy with any conscious desire for that particular +form of government, and no vision of a perfect State or an ideal +commonwealth has sustained them on the march. Our boast has been that we +are a "practical" people, and so our politics are, as they ever have been, +experimental. Reforms have been accomplished not out of deference to some +moral or political principle, but because the abuse to be remedied had +become intolerable. Dissatisfaction with the Government and the conviction +that only by enfranchisement and the free election of representatives can +Parliament remove the grounds of dissatisfaction, have carried us towards +democracy. + +GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE + +We have been brought to accept Abraham Lincoln's famous phrase, "Government +of the people, by the people, for the people," as a definition of +democracy; but in that acceptance there is no harking back to the early +democracies of Greece or Rome, so beloved by the French democrats of the +eighteenth century, who, however, knew very little about those ancient +states--or any vain notion of restoring primitive Teutonic democracy. + +The sovereign assemblies of Greece--the Ecclesia of Athens, and the Apella +of Sparta--the Comitia Centuriata of Rome, have no more resemblance to +democracy in the twentieth century than the Witenagemot has to the British +Parliament; and the democracy which has arisen in modern times is neither +to be traced for its origin to Greece or Rome, nor found to be evolved from +Anglo-Saxon times. The early democracies of Athens and Sparta were confined +to small states, and were based on a slave population without civic rights. +There was not even a conception that slaves might or should take part in +politics, and the slaves vastly outnumbered the citizens. Modern democracy +does not tolerate slavery, it will not admit the permanent exclusion of any +body of people from enfranchisement; though it finds it hard to ignore +differences of race and colour, it is always enlarging the borders of +citizenship. So that already in the Australian Commonwealth, in New +Zealand, in certain of the American States, in Norway, and in Finland, we +have the complete enfranchisement of all men and women who are of age to +vote. + +Apart from this vital difference between a slave-holding democracy and a +democracy of free citizens--a difference that rent the United States in +civil war, and was only settled in America by democracy ending +slavery--ancient democracy was government by popular assembly, and modern +democracy is government through elected representatives. The former is only +possible in small communities with very limited responsibilities--a parish +meeting can decide questions of no more than strictly local interest; for +our huge empires of to-day nothing better than representative government +has been devised for carrying out the general will of the majority. + +As for the early English Witenagemot, it was simply an assembly of the +chiefs, and, though crowds sometimes attended, all but the great men were +the merest spectators. Doubtless the folk-moot of the tribe was democratic, +for all free men attended it, and the English were a nation of freeholders, +and the slaves were few--except in the west--and might become free men.[1] +The shire-moot, too, with its delegates from the hundred-moots, was equally +democratic. But with feudalism and the welding of the nation, tribal +democracies passed away, leaving, however, in many places a valuable +tradition of local self-government. + +THE FOUNDATIONS OF DEMOCRACY + +A steady and invincible belief that those who maintain the defence of the +country and pay for the cost of government should have a voice in the great +council of the nation, and the conviction that effective utterance can be +found for that voice in duly chosen representatives, are the foundations on +which democracy has built. Democracy itself comes in (1) when it is seen +that all are being taxed for national purposes; and (2) the opinion finds +acceptance that responsibilities of citizenship should be borne by all who +have reached the age of manhood and are of sound mind. + +To sketch the rise of democracy in England is to trace the steady +resistance to kings who would govern without the advice of counsellors, and +to note the growing determination that these counsellors must be elected +representatives. Only when the absolutism of the Crown is ended and a +Parliament of elected members has become the real centre of government, is +it possible, without a revolution, for democracy to be established. + +Much of this book is given up, then, to the old stories of kingly rule +checked and slowly superseded by aristocracy. And all the old attempts at +revolution by popular insurrection are again retold, not only because of +the witness they bear to the impossibility in England of achieving +democracy by the violent overthrow of government, but because they also +bear witness to the heroic resolution of the English people to take up arms +and plunge into a sea of troubles rather than bear patiently ills that were +unseemly for men to endure in silence. Popular insurrection failed, but +over and over again violence has been resorted to in the resistance to +tyranny, and has been justified by its victory. If Wat Tyler, Jack Cade, +and Robert Ket are known as beaten revolutionaries, Stephen Langton, Simon +of Montfort, and John Hampden are acclaimed as patriots for not disdaining +the use of armed resistance. + +The conclusion is that a democratic revolution was not to be accomplished +in England by a rising of the people, but that forcible resistance even to +the point of civil war was necessary to guard liberties already won, or to +save the land from gross misgovernment. But always the forcible resistance, +when successful, has been made not by revolutionaries but by the strong +champions of constitutional government. The fruit of the resistance to John +was the Great Charter; of Simon of Montfort's war against Henry III., the +beginning of a representative Parliament; of the war against Charles, the +establishment of Parliamentary government. Lilburne and his friends hoped +that the civil war and the abolition of monarchy would bring in democracy, +though democracy was never in the mind of men like Hampden, who made the +war, and was utterly uncongenial to Cromwell and the Commonwealth men. But +the sanctity of monarchy received its death-blow from Cromwell, and +perished with the deposing of James II.; and there has been no +resurrection. To the Whig rule we owe the transference of political power +from the Crown to Parliament. Once it is manifest that Parliament is the +instrument of authority, that the Prime Minister and his colleagues rule +only by the permission and with the approval of the House of Commons, and +that the House of Commons itself is chosen by a certain number of electors +to represent the nation, then it is plain that the real sovereignty is in +the electors who choose the House of Commons. As long as the electors are +few and consist of the great landowners and their satellites, then the +constitutional government is aristocracy, and democracy is still to come. + +And just as discontent with monarchy, and its obvious failure as a +satisfactory form of government, brought in aristocracy, so at the +beginning of the nineteenth century discontent with aristocracy was rife, +and a new industrial middle-class looked for "Parliamentary reform," to +improve the condition of England. + +BRITISH DEMOCRACY EXPERIMENTAL, NOT DOCTRINAIRE + +Resistance to royal absolutism, culminating in the acknowledged ascendancy +of Parliament and the triumphant aristocracy of 1688, was never based on +abstract principles of the rights of barons and landowners, but sprang from +the positive, definite conviction that those who furnished arms and men for +the king, or who paid certain moneys in taxation, were entitled to be heard +in the councils of the king; and the charters given in the twelfth and +thirteenth centuries--from Henry I. to Henry III.--confirmed this +conviction. The resistance to the Stuarts was still based on the conviction +that direct taxation conferred political privileges, but now the claim to +speak in the great council of the realm had become a request to be listened +to by the king, and passed rapidly from that to a resolution that the king +should have no money from Parliament if he refused to listen. The practical +inconvenience of a king altogether at variance with Parliament was held to +be sufficient justification for getting rid of James II., and for hobbling +all future kings with the Bill of Rights. + +The dethronement of aristocracy in favour of democracy has proceeded on +very similar lines. The mass of English people were far too wretched and +far too ignorant at the end of the eighteenth century to care anything +about abstract "rights of man," and only political philosophers and a few +artisans hoped for improvement in their condition by Parliamentary reform. +Agricultural England accepted the rule of landowners as an arrangement by +providence. It was the industrial revolution that shattered the feudal +notions of society, and created a manufacturing population which knew +nothing of lowly submission to pastors and masters. A middle-class emerged +from the very ranks of the working people. The factory system brought +fortunes to men who a few years earlier had been artisans, and to these new +capitalists in the nineteenth century the aristocracy in power was as +irksome as the Stuarts had been to the Whigs. If, as the Whigs taught, +those who paid the taxes were entitled to a voice in the government, then +the manufacturing districts ought to send representatives to Parliament. It +seemed monstrous that places like Manchester, Leeds, and Birmingham had no +one in the House of Commons to plead for the needs of their inhabitants. +The manufacturer wanted Parliamentary representation because he hoped +through Parliament to secure the abolition of the political disabilities of +Nonconformists, and to get financial changes made that would make the +conditions of trade more profitable. And he felt that it would be better +for the country if he and the class he represented could speak freely in +Parliament. + +The workman wanted the vote because he had been brought to believe that, +possessing the vote, he could make Parliament enact laws that would lighten +the hardships of his life. The whole of the manufacturing class--capitalist +and workman alike--could see by 1820 that the House of Commons was the +instrument of the electorate, and that to get power they must become +electors. (Yet probably not one per cent. of them could express clearly any +theory of popular sovereignty.) The old Whig families, kept out of office +by the Tories whom George III. had placed in power, and who now controlled +the House of Commons, supported reform and the enfranchisement of the +middle class because they saw no way of getting back into power except by a +new electorate and a redistribution of Parliamentary seats. At the +beginning of the twentieth century the landowner, still Whig, though now, +as a general rule enrolled with the Unionist Party, has not been excluded +from political power, but the representatives of the middle-class and of +the working people are predominant in the House of Commons. The claim of +the House of Lords to reject the bills of the Commons has been, in our +time, subjected to the criticism formerly extended to the royal +prerogative, and an Act--the Parliament Act--has now been passed which +formally requires the Lords to accept, without serious amendment, every +Bill sent up from the Commons in three successive sessions. + +The transition from monarchy to aristocracy in England was brought about at +the price of civil war. In many countries democracy has been born in +revolution, and the birth pains have been hard and bitter. But in England +in the nineteenth century democracy was allowed to come into being by +permission of the aristocracy, and has not yet reached its full stature. It +is true that violence, bloodshed, loss of life, and destruction of property +marked the passage of the great Reform Bill; that more than once riots and +defiance of law and order have been the expression of industrial +discontent; but on the whole the average Englishman is content to wait for +the redress of wrongs by Parliamentary action. Women have quite recently +defied the law, refused to pay taxes, and made use of "militant methods" in +their agitation for enfranchisement. But the women's plea has been that, as +they are voteless, these methods have been necessary to call attention to +their demands. Democratic advance has often been hindered and delayed by +government, and by a national disinclination from rapid political change; +but as the character of government has changed with the changed character +of the electorate and the House of Commons, so resistance to democracy has +always been abandoned when the advance was widely supported, and further +delay seemed dangerous to the public order. + +The House of Lords is thus seen to yield to the popular representatives in +the House of Commons, and the government, dependent on the House of +Commons, to listen to the demand of women for enfranchisement. + +While the House of Commons completes its assertion of political supremacy, +and insists on the absolute responsibility of the chosen representatives of +the electorate, the agitation for the enfranchisement of women is the +reminder that democracy has yet to widen its borders. Progress to democracy +in the last one hundred years is visible not only in the enlarged number of +enfranchised citizens, but in the general admission that every extension of +the franchise has been to the public good; not only in the fact that men of +all classes and trades now have their representatives in Parliament, but in +the very wide acknowledgment that women without votes cannot get that +attention by members of the House of Commons that is given to male +electors. That the majority of electors have expressed a decided opinion +that the power of the House of Lords should be curtailed, as the power of +the monarchy has been curtailed, and that the decisions of the House of +Commons are only to be corrected by the House of Commons, is evidence that +under our obviously imperfect Parliamentary system the will of the electors +does get registered on the Statute Book. + +EDUCATION TO DEMOCRACY + +Apart from the direct political education to democracy, it is well to note +the other agencies that have been at work, preparing men and women for the +responsible task of national self-government. + +In the Middle Ages the religious guilds and the trade guilds, managed by +their own members, gave men and women a training in democratic government. +The parish, too, was a commune, and its affairs and finances were +administered by duly elected officers.[2] + +But the guilds, with their numerous almshouses and hospitals, were all +suppressed early in Edward VI.'s reign, and their funds confiscated. As for +the parish, it was shorn of all its property, save the parish church, in +the same reign, and its old self-governing life dwindled away to the +election of churchwardens. + +It was not till the beginning of the nineteenth century that the working +classes, by the formation of trade unions, once more took up the task of +education in self-government. From that time onward, through trade unions, +co-operative societies, and friendly societies, with their annual +conferences and congresses, a steady training in democracy has been +achieved; and our Labour Party of to-day, with its Members of Parliament, +its members of county and district councils, and its Justices of the Peace, +would hardly have been possible but for this training. Other agencies may +be mentioned. The temperance movement, the organisation of working-men's +clubs, and the local preaching of the Nonconformist Churches--particularly +the Primitive Methodist denomination--have all helped to educate workmen in +the conduct of affairs, and to create that sense of personal responsibility +which is the only guarantee of an honest democracy. + + * * * * * + + +CHAPTER I + +THE EARLY STRUGGLES AGAINST THE ABSOLUTISM OF THE CROWN + +THE GREAT CHURCHMEN + +We are far from any thoughts of democracy in the early struggles against +the absolutism of the Crown. The old love of personal liberty that is said +to have characterised the Anglo-Saxon had no political outlet under Norman +feudalism. What we note is that three Archbishops of Canterbury were strong +enough and brave enough to stand up against the unchecked rule of kings, +and the names of these great Archbishops--Anselm, Thomas a Becket, and +Stephen Langton--are to be honoured for all time for the services they +rendered in the making of English liberties. Not one of the three was in +any sense a democrat. It is not till the latter part of the fourteenth +century that we find John Ball, a wandering, revolutionary priest, uttering +for the first time in England a democratic doctrine. Anselm, Becket, and +Langton did their work, as Simon of Montfort, and as Eliot and Hampden +worked later, not for the sake of a democracy, but for the restriction of +an intolerable autocracy. All along in English history liberties have been +gained and enlarged by this process of restriction, and it was only when +the powers of the Crown had been made subject to Parliament that it was +possible, at the close of the nineteenth century, for Parliament itself to +become converted from an assembly of aristocrats to a governing body that +really represented the nation. + +But in considering the rise of democracy we can no more omit the early +struggles against the absolutism of the Crown than we can pass over Simon +of Montfort's Parliament, or the unsuccessful popular revolts, or the war +with Charles I., or the Whig revolution of 1688. They are all incidents of +pre-democratic days, but they are all events of significance. Democracy is +no new order of society, conceived in the fertile mind of man; it has been +slowly evolved and brought to birth after centuries of struggle, to be +tried as a form of government only when other forms are outgrown, and cease +to be acceptable. + +All the great men--heroic and faulty--who withstood the tyranny of their +day, not only wrested charters from kings, they left a tradition of +resistance; and this tradition has been of incalculable service to a nation +seeking self-government. It is easy to dismiss the work of Anselm and +Becket as mere disputes between monarch and Churchman, to treat lightly the +battle for the Great Charter as a strife between king and barons. Just as +easy is it to regard the Peasant Revolt of the fourteenth century and Jack +Cade's rebellion in the fifteenth century as the tumults of a riotous mob. +The great point is to see clearly in all these contests, successful and +unsuccessful, the movement for liberty, for greater security and expansion +of life in England, and to note that only by a stern endurance and a +willingness not to bear an irksome oppression have our liberties been won. +In the winning of these liberties we have proved our fitness for democracy, +for a government that will allow the fullest measure of self-development. + +Now, what was it that Anselm contended for, first with William II. and then +with Henry I.? + +ARCHBISHOP ANSELM AND NORMAN AUTOCRACY + +Anselm was sixty when, in 1093, William II. named him for the Archbishopric +of Canterbury. In vain Anselm, who was Abbot of the famous monastery of +Bec, in Normandy, protested that he was too old, and that his business was +not with high place and power in this world. The King seemed to be dying, +and the bishops gathered round the sick bed would not hear of any refusal +on Anselm's part. They pushed the pastoral staff into his hands, and +carried him off to a neighbouring church, while the people shouted "Long +live the bishop!" + +What everybody felt was that with Anselm as Archbishop things might be +better in England, for Anselm's reputation stood very high. He had been the +friend of Lanfranc, the late Archbishop; he had been an honoured guest at +the Court of William the Conqueror; and he was known for his deep learning, +his sanctity of life, and simple, disinterested devotion to duty. It was +hoped that with a man of such holiness at Canterbury some restraint might +be placed on the lawless tyranny of the Red King. Lanfranc had been the +trusted counsellor and right hand of the Red King's father: why should not +Anselm bring back the son to the paths of decency--at least? The Archbishop +of Canterbury was the chief man in the realm next to the king, and for +three years since Lanfranc's death the see had been kept vacant that +William Rufus might enjoy its revenues for his own pleasure. It was not +unreasonable that men should look to the appointment of Anselm as the +beginning of an amendment in Church and State. The trouble was that William +stuck to his evil courses. + +The rule of William the Conqueror had been stern and harsh, and his hand +had been heavy on the English people. But there had been law and justice in +the rule; religion and morality had been respected, and peace and security +obtained. + +The rule of the Red King was not only grievous, it was arbitrary, +capricious, cruel, and without semblance of law. The austerity of the +Conqueror had been conspicuous; equally conspicuous was the debauchery of +his son. The Conqueror had been faithful and conscientious in seeing that +vacancies in the Church were filled up quickly and wisely. The Red King +preferred to leave bishoprics and churches empty so that he might annex the +profits. Lanfranc, a wise and just man, had been the Minister of the +Conqueror; the Red King made Ranulf (nicknamed the Torch or Firebrand)--a +clever, unprincipled clerk--Bishop of Durham and Justiciar. It was Ranulf +who did the King's business in keeping churches and bishoprics vacant, in +violation of law and custom; it was Ranulf who plundered the King's vassals +and the people at large by every kind of extortion, thwarted the protests +of Anselm, and encouraged William in his savage profligacies. + +Meek and gentle as Anselm was, he had all the courage that comes of a lofty +sense of responsibility to God, and he stood before kings as the Hebrew +prophets of old had stood, calm and fearless. At Christmas, 1092, three +months before his nomination to the See of Canterbury, Anselm was in +England over the affairs of his monastery, and William invited him to Court +and treated him with great display of honour. Then some private talk took +place between the two, and Anselm said plainly that "Things were spoken +daily of the King, openly or secretly, by nearly all the men of his realm, +which were not seemly for the King's dignity." From that time Anselm stayed +in England, for William refused to give him leave to return to Normandy. + +Then in March, 1093 came the King's sickness, which most men expected to be +mortal. Anselm was summoned, and on his arrival bade the King "make a clean +confession of all that he knows that he has done against God, and promise +that, should he recover, he will without pretence amend in all things. The +King at once agreed to this, and with sorrow of heart engaged to do all +that Anselm required and to keep justice and mercy all his life long. To +this he pledged his faith, and made his bishops witness between himself and +God, sending persons in his stead to promise his word to God on the altar. +An edict was written and sealed with the King's seal that all prisoners +should be set free in all his dominions, all debts forgiven, all offences +heretofore committed pardoned and forgotten for ever. Further, good and +holy laws were promised to the whole people, and the sacred upholding of +right and such solemn inquest into wrongdoing as may deter others."[3] + +William did not die, and his repentance was short-lived; but the one act of +grace he did before leaving his sick bed was to fill up the empty throne at +Canterbury by the appointment of Anselm--Anselm's protests of unfitness +notwithstanding. Then, on the King's recovery, as though to make up for the +penitence displayed, all the royal promises of amendment were broken +without shame, and "all the evil which the King had wrought before he was +sick seemed good by the side of the wrong which he did when he was returned +to health." The prisoners who had been pardoned were sent back to prison, +the debts which had been cancelled were re-claimed, and all legal actions +which had been dropped were resumed. Anselm was now enthroned at +Canterbury, and his appointment could not be revoked; but the King was +quick to show his displeasure at the new Archbishop. + +The first point raised by William was that those lands belonging to the See +of Canterbury, which had been made over to military vassals of the Crown +while the archbishopric was vacant, should remain with their holders. +Anselm said at once that this was impossible. He was responsible for the +administration of all the estates of Canterbury, and to allow these lands +to be alienated to the Crown was to rob the poor and needy who, it was +held, had a just claim on the property of the Church. Besides, Anselm saw +that the lands would never be restored once an Archbishop confirmed their +appropriation by the King's military tenants. There was no one in all +England save Anselm who dared withstand the Crown, and had he yielded on +this matter resistance to the tyranny of the Red King would only have been +harder on the next occasion. + +Then came the question of a present of money to the King, the customary +offering. Anselm brought five hundred marks (L333), a very considerable sum +in those days, and William, persuaded by some of his courtiers that twice +the amount ought to have been given, curtly declined the present. Anselm, +who disliked the whole business of these gifts to the Crown, for he knew +that many a Churchman bought his office by promising a "free" gift after +institution, solemnly warned William that money given freely as his was +given was better than a forced tribute, and to this William answered that +he wanted neither the Archbishop's money nor his preaching or company. + +Thereupon Anselm retired and gave the money to the poor, determined that +he, for his part, would make no attempt to purchase William's goodwill. +Henceforth William was equally determined that Anselm should have no peace +in England. It was hateful to the King that there should be anyone in the +realm who acknowledged a higher authority than the Crown, and Anselm made +it too plain that the Archbishop rested his authority not on the favour of +the Crown, but on the discipline of the Christian religion. William was +King of England indisputably, but there was a higher power than the King, +and that was the Pope. William himself never dreamed of denying the divine +authority of the Pope in spiritual matters; no one in all Christendom in +the eleventh and twelfth centuries questioned that at Rome was a court of +appeal higher than the courts of kings. Strong rulers like William the +Conqueror might decline to submit to Rome on a personal question of +marriage, but Rome was the recognised centre of religion, the headquarters +of the Christian Church, and the supreme court of appeal. Apart from Rome +there was no power that could curb the fierce unbridled tyranny of the +kings of the earth, and the power of Rome was a spiritual weapon, for the +Pope had no army to enforce his decisions. So Anselm, conscious of this +spiritual authority, refused to bow to the lawless rule of the Red King; +and his very attitude, while it encouraged men to lift up their hearts who +erstwhile had felt that it was hopeless and useless to strive against +William,[4] enraged the Red King to fury. + +The things he wanted to forget were that the chief representative of the +Christian religion was a greater person than the King of England, and that +the Archbishop of Canterbury could be a Christian minister rather than a +King's man.[5] And Anselm was the constant witness to the Christian +religion, and, by his very presence, a rebuke to the crimes and cruelties +of the Court of the Red King. William actually wrote to the Pope, naturally +without any success, praying him to depose Anselm, and promising a large +annual tribute to Rome if the request was granted. + +For years the uneven contest was waged. The bishops generally avoided +Anselm, and were only anxious to be accepted by the King as good servants +of the Crown, with the result that William despised them for their +servility. But the barons began to declare their respect for the brave old +man at Canterbury. + +At last, when Anselm was summoned to appear before the King's Court, to "do +the King right," on a trumped-up charge of having failed to send an +adequate supply of troops for the King's service, he felt the position was +hopeless. Anselm's longing had been to labour with the King, as Lanfranc +had laboured, to promote religion in the country, and he had been +frustrated at every turn. The summons to the King's Court was the last +straw, for the defendant in this Court was entirely at the mercy of the +Crown. "When, in Anglo-Norman times you speak of the King's Court, it is +only a phrase for the King's despotism."[6] Anselm took no notice of the +King's summons, and decided to appeal to Rome. For a time William refused +permission for any departure from England, but he yielded in 1097, and +Anselm set out for Rome. + +He stayed at Rome and at Lyons till William was dead, for the Pope would +not let him resign Canterbury, and could do nothing to bring the King to a +better mind. Then, on the urgent request of Henry I., he returned to +England, and for a time all went well. Henry was in earnest for the +restoration of law and religion in England, and his declaration, at the +very beginning of his reign--the oft-quoted "charter" of Henry I.--to stop +the old scandals of selling and farming out Church lands, and to put down +all unrighteousness that had been in his brother's time, was hailed with +rejoicing. + +Anselm stood loyally by Henry over the question of his marriage with Edith +(who claimed release from vows taken under compulsion in a convent at +Romsey), and his fidelity at the critical time when Robert of Normandy and +the discontented nobles threatened the safety of the Crown was invaluable. +But Henry was an absolutist, anxious for all the threads of power to be in +his own hands; and just when a great Church Council at the Lateran had +decided that bishops must not be invested by kings with the ring and staff +of their office, because by such investiture they were the king's vassals, +Henry decided to invite Anselm to receive the archbishopric afresh from the +King's hands by a new act of investiture. To Anselm the abject submission +of the bishops to the Red King had been a painful spectacle; and now Henry +was making a demand that would emphasise the royal supremacy, and the +demand was intolerable and impossible. Again Anselm stood practically alone +in his resistance to the royal will, and again the question in dispute was +whether there was any power in England higher than the Crown. The papal +supremacy was no more under discussion than it had been under William. All +that Henry wanted was that the archbishops and bishops should acknowledge +that their authority came from the Crown; and at Henry's request Anselm, +then 70 years old, again journeyed to Rome to lay the matter before the +Pope. + +Pope Paschal was fully alive to the mischief of making the bishops and +clergy mere officers of kings, and it was soon seen there could be no +dispensations from Rome even for Henry. All that the Pope would allow was +that bishops might do homage to the Crown for their temporal rights, and +with this Henry had to be content. + +It was three years later before Anselm returned, and his course was now +nearly run. He died at peace on April 21st, 1109, having wrought to no +small purpose for religious liberty and the independence of the clergy. +(The demand for political and social independence always follows the +struggle for independence in religion.) Anselm spent the greater part of +his life after his enthronement at Canterbury in battling for independence +of the Crown; a century later Archbishop Stephen was to carry the battle +still further, and win wider liberties for England from the Crown. + +Of Anselm's general love of liberty and hatred of all tyranny many stories +are told. One fact may be recalled. The Church Synod, which met at +Westminster in 1102, at Anselm's request, attacked the slave trade as a +"wicked trade used hitherto in England, by which men are sold like brute +animals," and framed a Church rule against its continuance. + +In spite of this decree, serfdom lingered in England for centuries, but +hiring superseded open buying and selling of men. (The African slave trade +was the work of the Elizabethan seamen, and was excused, as slavery in the +United States was excused, by the Protestant Churches on the ground of the +racial inferiority of the negro.) + +THOMAS A BECKET AND HENRY II. + +Resistance to autocracy is often more needed against a strong and just king +than it is against an unprincipled profligate. Henry II.'s love of order +and peace, the strength and energy he spent in curtailing the power of the +barons, and in making firm the foundations of our national system of petty +sessions and assize courts have made for him an enduring fame. Henry II. +was a great lawyer; he was "the flower of the princes of his world," in +contemporary eyes; but it was as an autocrat he would rule. Against this +autocracy Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, protested, and the +protest cost him five years of exile, and finally his life. The manner of +his death earned for the Archbishop the title of martyr, and popular +acclamation required him to be canonised as a saint,[7] and his name to be +long cherished with deep devotion by the English people. Both Henry and +Thomas stand out honourably, but the former would have brought all England +under one great centralised authority, with the Crown not only predominant +but absolute in its supremacy, and the Archbishop contended for the great +mass of poor and needy people to mitigate the harshness of the law, and to +maintain the liberties of the Church against the encroachments of +sovereignty. "Nothing is more certain," as the old writer put it, "than +that both strove earnestly to do the will of God, one for the sake of his +realm, the other on behalf of his Church. But whether of the two was +zealous in wisdom is not plain to man, who is so easily mistaken, but to +the Lord, Who will judge between them at the last day." + +Becket was the first English-born Archbishop of Canterbury since the Norman +Conquest. Henry, on his accession, clove to him in friendship, made him +Lord Chancellor in 1155, and on Archbishop Theobald's death, the monks of +Canterbury at once accepted Henry's advice and elected him to the vacant +see. Becket himself knew the King too well to desire the appointment, and +warned Henry not to press the matter, and prophesied that their friendship +would be turned to bitter enmity. But Henry's mind was made up. As +Chancellor, Becket had shown no ecclesiastical bias. He had taxed clergy +and laity with due impartiality, and his legal decisions had been given +without fear or favour. Henry counted on Becket to act with the same +indifference as Archbishop, to be the King's vicegerent during the royal +absence in France. And here Henry, wise as he was in many things, mistook +his man. As Chancellor of England Becket conceived his business to be the +administration of the laws: as Archbishop he was first and foremost the +champion of the Christian religion, the protector of the poor, and the +defender of the liberties of the Church. All unwilling, like his great +predecessor, St. Anselm, to become archbishop, from the hour of his +consecration to the See of Canterbury, in 1162, Becket was as firm as +Anselm had been in resisting the absolutism of the King. To the King's +extreme annoyance the Chancellorship was at once given up--the only +instance known of the voluntary resignation of the Chancellorship by layman +or ecclesiastic,[8] and all the amusements of the Court and the business of +the world were laid aside by the new archbishop. The care of his diocese, +the relief of the poor and the sick, and attendance at the sacred offices +of the Church were henceforth the work of the man who had been Henry's +best-loved companion, and within a year of his enthronement friendship with +the King was broken. + +The first point at issue was whether there should be one common +jurisdiction in all the land, or whether the Church courts should still +exist. These Church courts had been set up by William the Conqueror and +Lanfranc, in order that the clergy should not be mixed up in ordinary law +matters, and should be excluded strictly from the common courts. No penalty +involving bloodshed could be inflicted in the Church courts, and all the +savage barbarities of mutilation, common enough as punishments in the +King's court, were forbidden. Henry II., apart from his strong desire for +centralisation in government, wanted these Church courts abolished, because +every clerk who offended against the law escaped ordinary punishment, no +matter what the charge might be. Archbishop Thomas saw that in the Church +courts there was some protection, not only for the clergy, but for all +minor ecclesiastics, and for widows and orphans, against the horrible legal +cruelties of the age. "It must be held in mind that the Archbishop had on +his side the Church or _Canon Law_, which he had sworn to obey, and +certainly the law courts erred as much on the side of harshness and cruelty +as those of the Church on that of foolish pity towards evil doers."[9] + +Before this dispute had reached its climax Thomas had boldly taken measures +against some of the King's courtiers who were defrauding the See of +Canterbury; and he had successfully withstood Henry's plan for turning the +old Dane-geld shire tax, which was paid to the sheriff for the defence of +the country and the up-keep of roads, into a tax to be collected by the +Crown as part of the royal revenue. Thomas told the King plainly that this +tax was a voluntary offering to be paid to the sheriffs only "so long as +they shall serve as fitly and maintain and defend our defendants," and said +point blank that he would not suffer a penny to be taken off his lands for +the King's purposes. Henry was obliged to yield, and this is the first case +known of resistance to the royal will in the matter of taxation. + +The case of clerical offenders, and the jurisdiction of the courts came +before a great council at Westminster in 1163. Henry declared that +criminous clerks should be deprived of their office in the Church courts, +and then handed over to the King's courts for punishment. Thomas replied +that the proposal was contrary to the religious liberties of the land, but +he met with little support from the rest of the bishops. "Better the +liberties of the Church perish than that we perish ourselves," they cried +in fear of the King. Henry followed up his proposal by calling on the +bishops to abide by the old customs of the realm, as settled by his +grandfather, Henry I., and to this they all agreed, adding "saving the +rights of our order." + +A list of the old customs was drawn up, and sixteen _Constitutions_, or +articles, were presented to the bishops at the Great Council of Clarendon, +in January, 1164. To many of these Constitutions Thomas objected; notably +(1) That clerks were to be tried in the King's courts for offences of +common law. (2) That neither archbishops, bishops, nor beneficed clerks +were to leave the kingdom without royal permission. (This would not only +stop appeals to Rome, it would make pilgrimages or attendance at General +Councils impossible without the King's consent.) (3) That no member of the +King's household was to be excommunicated without the King's permission. +(4) That no appeals should be taken beyond the Archbishop's court, except +to be brought before the King. (This definite prohibition of appeals to +Rome left the King absolute master in England.) The last article declared +that neither serfs nor the sons of villeins were to be ordained without the +consent of the lord on whose land they were born. Against his own judgment +Thomas yielded to the entreaties of the bishops, and agreed to accept the +Constitutions of Clarendon, but no sooner had he done so than he bitterly +repented, and wrote off to the Pope acknowledging his mistake. Pope +Alexander III. was mainly anxious to prevent open hostilities between Henry +and the Archbishop, and wrote calmly that he was absolved, without +suggesting any blame to the King. + +Henry now saw that the Archbishop, and only the Archbishop, stood in the +way of the royal will, and when another Council met at Northampton, in +October, 1164, the King was ready to drive Thomas out of office. Before +this Council Thomas was charged with having refused justice to John, the +Treasury-Marshall, and with contempt of the King's court, and was heavily +fined. It was difficult to get sentence pronounced, for the barons declined +to sit as judges on an archbishop; but at length, Henry, Bishop of +Winchester, on the King's order, declared the sentence. Henry followed up +the attack next day by calling upon Thomas to account for 30,000 marks +spent by him while Chancellor. In vain he proved that the Justiciar had +declared him free of all claims when he laid down the Chancellorship, that +the charge was totally unexpected; the King refused to stay the proceedings +unless Thomas would sign the Constitutions of Clarendon. + +Consultation with the bishops brought no help. "The King has declared, so +it is said, that he and you cannot both remain in England as king and +archbishop. It would be much safer to resign everything and submit to his +mercy"; thus spake Hilary, of Chichester, and his fellow-bishops all urged +resignation or submission. + +Two days later the Archbishop came into the Council in full robes with the +Cross in his hand. Earl Robert, of Leicester, rose to pass sentence upon +him and at once the Archbishop refused to hear him. "Neither law nor reason +permit children to pass sentence on their father," he declared. "I will not +hear this sentence of the King, or any judgment of yours. For, under God, I +will be judged by the Pope alone, to whom before you all here I appeal, +placing the Church of Canterbury under God's protection and the protection +of the Pope." + +There were shouts of anger at these words, and some tore rushes from the +floor and flung at him, but no one dared to stop the Archbishop's passage +as he passed from the hall. It was useless to look for help or justice in +England, and that very night Thomas left England for Flanders to appeal to +Rome. + +But Pope Alexander could do no more for Thomas than his predecessor had +done for Anselm; only he would not allow any resignation from Canterbury. +Henry himself appealed to the Pope in 1166, fearing excommunication by the +Archbishop; "thus by a strange fate it happened that the King, while +striving for those 'ancient customs' by which he endeavoured to prevent any +right of appeal (to the Pope), was doomed to confirm the right of appeal +for his own safety." The Pope did what he could to arrange a +reconciliation, but it was not till 1170 that the King, seriously alarmed +that Thomas would place England under an interdict, agreed to a +reconciliation. + +On December 1st the exile was over, and Thomas landed at Sandwich, and went +at once to Canterbury. There were many who doubted whether there could be +lasting peace between the King and the Archbishop, and while the bishops +generally hated the Primate's return, the nobles spoke openly of him as a +traitor to the King. + +The end was near. Thomas, asked to withdraw the sentence of excommunication +he had passed against the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London and +Salisbury for violating the privileges of Canterbury, answered that the +matter must go before the Pope. The bishops, instead of going to Rome, +hastened to Henry, who was keeping his Court at Bur, in France. + +Henry, at the complaint of the bishops, broke out into one of those +terrible fits of anger which overcame him from time to time, and four +knights left the Court saying, "All this trouble will be at an end when +Thomas is dead, and not before." On December 29th these knights were at +Canterbury, and at nightfall, just when vespers had begun, they slew +Archbishop Thomas by the great pillar in the Cathedral. So died this great +Archbishop for the liberties of the Church, and, as it seemed to him, for +the welfare of the people. + +Henry was horrified at the news of the Archbishop's death, and hastened to +beg absolution from Rome for the rash words that had provoked the murder. +In the presence of the Papal legate he promised to give up the +Constitutions of Clarendon, nor in the remaining eighteen years of his +reign did Henry make any fresh attempt to bring the Church under the +subjection of the Crown. + +To the great bulk of English people Thomas was a saint and martyr, and +numerous churches were dedicated in his name. More than three hundred years +later Henry VIII. decided that St. Thomas was an enemy of princes, that his +shrine at Canterbury must be destroyed, and his festival unhallowed. But +the fame of Thomas a Becket has survived the censure of Henry VIII., and +his name shines clearly across the centuries. Democracy has been made +possible by the willingness of brave men in earlier centuries to resist, to +the death, an absolutism that would have left England bound and chained to +the king's throne. + +STEPHEN LANGTON AND JOHN + +Stephen Langton was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury in June, 1207, on +the nomination of Pope Innocent III.; the monks of Canterbury, who had +proposed their own superior, consenting to the appointment, for Langton had +a high reputation for learning and was known to be of exalted character. +But King John, who had wanted a man of his own heart for the +archbishopric--John of Gray, Bishop of Norwich, commonly spoken of as "a +servant of Mammon, and an evil shepherd that devoured his own sheep"--was +enraged, and refusing to acknowledge Langton, defied the Pope, drove the +monks out of the country, and declared that anyone who acknowledged Stephen +Langton as archbishop should be accounted a public enemy. So it came about +that the great English statesman who broke down the foulest and worst +tyranny the land had known, and won for England the Great Charter of its +liberties, was a nominee of the Pope, and was to find himself under the +displeasure of the Papal legate when the Charter had been signed! For six +years John kept Stephen out of Canterbury, while England lay under an +interdict, with its King excommunicate and outside the pale of the Church. +Most of the bishops fled abroad, "fearing the King, but afraid to obey him +for dread of the Pope," and John laid hands on Church property and filled +the royal treasury with the spoils of churchmen and Jews. But in 1213 +John's position had become precarious, for the northern barons were +plotting his overthrow, and the Pope had absolved all his subjects from +allegiance, and given sentence that "John should be thrust from his throne +and another worthier than he should reign in his stead," naming Philip of +France as his successor. John was aware that he could not count on the +support of the barons in a war with France, and a prophecy of Peter, the +Wakefield Hermit, that the crown would be lost before Ascension Day, made +him afraid of dying excommunicate. Accordingly John decided to get the Pope +on his side. He agreed to receive Pandulf, the Papal legate; to acknowledge +Stephen; make good the damage done to the Church, and, in addition, +voluntarily ("of our own good free will and by the common counsel of our +barons") surrendered "to God and to the Holy Mother Church of Rome, and to +Pope Innocent and his Catholic successors," the whole realm of England and +Ireland, "with all rights thereunto appertaining, to receive them back and +hold them thenceforth as a feudatory of God and the Roman Church." He swore +fealty to the Pope for both realms, and promised a yearly tribute of 1,000 +marks. + +This abject submission to the Pope was a matter of policy. John cared +nothing for any appearance of personal or national humiliation, and as he +had broken faith with all in England, so, if it should suit his purpose, +would he as readily break faith with Rome. But the immediate advantage of +having the Pope for his protector seemed considerable. "For when once he +had put himself under apostolical protection and made his realms a part of +the patrimony of St. Peter, there was not in the Roman world a sovereign +who durst attack him or would invade his lands, in such awe was Pope +Innocent held above all his predecessors for many years past."[10] + +Stephen landed in June, 1213, and at Winchester John was formally absolved +and the coronation oaths were renewed. It was very soon seen what manner of +man the Archbishop was. In August a great gathering of the barons took +place in St. Paul's, and there Langton recited the coronation charter of +Henry I., and told all those assembled that these rights and liberties were +to be recovered; and "the barons swore they would fight for these +liberties, even unto death if it were needful, and the Archbishop promised +that he would help with all his might." The weakness of the barons hitherto +had been their want of cohesion, their endless personal feuds, and the lack +of any feeling of national responsibility. Langton laboured to create a +national party and to win recognition of law and justice for all in +England; and the Great Charter was the issue of his work. + +The state of things was intolerable. The whole administration of justice +was corrupt. The decisions of the King's courts were as arbitrary as the +methods employed to enforce sentence. Free men were arrested, evicted, +exiled, and outlawed without even legal warrant or the semblance of a fair +trial. All the machinery of government set up by the Norman kings, and +developed under Henry II., had, in John's hands, become a mere instrument +of despotic extortion, to be used against anybody and everybody, from earl +to villein, who could be fleeced by the King's servants. + +John saw the tide rising against him, and endeavoured to divide barons from +Churchmen by proclaiming that the latter should have free and undisturbed +right of election when bishoprics and other ecclesiastical offices were +vacant. But the attempt failed. Langton was too resolute a statesman, and +his conception of the primacy of Canterbury was too high for any turning +back from the work he had set himself to accomplish. The rights of election +in the Church were important, but the restoration of justice and order and +the ending of tyranny were, in his eyes, hardly less important. John, who +had been at war in France, returned defeated from his last attempt to +recover for the Crown the lost Angevin provinces, to face a discontent that +was both wide and general. The people, and in especial the barons and +knights whom for fourteen years John had robbed, insulted, and spurned, and +whose liberties he had trampled upon, were ready at last under wise +leadership to end the oppression. + +In November, 1214, the Archbishop saw that the time was come for action, +and again the barons met in council. Before the high altar in the Abbey +Church of St. Edmundsbury they swore that if the King sought to evade their +demand for the laws and liberties of Henry I.'s charter, they would make +war upon him until he pledged himself to confirm their rights in a charter +under royal seal. "They also agreed that after Christmas they would go all +together to the King and ask him for a confirmation of these liberties, and +that meanwhile they would so provide themselves with horses and arms that +if the King should seek to break his oath, they might, by seizing his +castles, compel him to make satisfaction. And when these things were done +every man returned to his own home."[11] + +John now asked for time to consider these requests, and for the next six +months worked hard to break up the barons' confederacy, to gain friends and +supporters, and to get mercenaries from Poitou. It was all to no purpose. +As a last resource he took the Cross, expecting to be saved as a crusader +from attack, and at the same time he wrote to the Pope to help his faithful +vassal. The Pope's letters rebuking the barons for conspiracy against the +King were unheeded, and the mercenaries were inadequate when John was +confronted by the whole baronage in arms. + +THE GREAT CHARTER + +In May a list of articles to be signed was sent to John; and on his refusal +the barons formally renounced their homage and fealty and flew to arms. +John was forced to surrender before this host. On June 15th he met the +barons at Runnymede, between Staines and Windsor, and there, in the +presence of Archbishop Stephen and "a multitude of most illustrious +knights," sealed the Great Charter of the Liberties of England. + +This Great Charter was in the main a renewal of the old rights and +liberties promised by Henry I. It set up no new rights, conferred no new +privileges, and sanctioned no changes in the Constitution. Its real and +lasting importance is due to its being a written document--for the first +time in England it was down in black and white, for all to read, what the +several rights and duties of King and people were, and in what the chief +points of the Constitution consisted. + +[Illustration: MAGNA CHARTA + +A facsimile of the Original in the British Museum.] + +The Great Charter is a great table of laws. It marks the beginning of +written legislation, and anticipates Acts of Parliament. Unwritten laws and +traditions were not abolished: they remain with us to this day; but the +written law had become a necessity when "the bonds of unwritten custom" +failed to restrain kings and barons. The Great Charter also took into +account the rights of free men, and of the tenants of the King's vassals. +If the barons and knights had their grievances to be redressed, the commons +and the freeholding peasants needed protection against the lawless +exactions of their overlords.[12] + +Sixty-three clauses make up Magna Charta, and we may summarise them as +follows:-- + +(1) The full rights and liberties of the Church are acknowledged; bishops +shall be freely elected, so that the Church of England shall be free.[13] + +(2-8) The King's tenants are to have their feudal rights secured against +abuse. Widows--in the wardship of the Crown--are to be protected against +robbery and against compulsion to a second marriage. + +(9-11) The harsh rules for securing the payment of debts to the Crown and +to the Jews (in whose debts the Crown had an interest) are to be relaxed. + +(12-14) No scutage or aid (save for the three regular feudal aids--the +ransom of the King, the knighting of his eldest son, and the marriage of +his eldest daughter) is to be imposed except by the Common Council of the +nation; and to this Council archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and +greater barons are to be called by special writ, while all who held their +land directly from the King, and were of lesser rank, were to be summoned +by a general writ addressed to the sheriff of the county. Forty days' +notice of the meeting was to be given, and also the cause of the assembly. +The action of those who obeyed the summons was to be taken to represent the +action of all.[14] (This last clause is never repeated in later +confirmations of the Great Charter.) + +(15-16) The powers of lords over their tenants are limited and defined. + +(17-19) A Court of Common Pleas is to be held in some fixed place so that +suitors are not obliged to follow the King's Curia. Cases touching the +ownership of land are to be tried in the counties by visiting justices, and +by four knights chosen by the county. + +(20-23) No freeman is to be fined beyond his offence, and the penalty is to +be fixed by a local jury. Earls and barons to be fined by their peers; and +clerks only according to the amount of their lay property. + +(24-33) The powers of sheriffs, constables, coroners, and bailiffs of the +King are strictly defined. No sheriff is to be a justice in his own county. +Royal officers are to pay for all the goods taken by requisition; money is +not to be taken in lieu of service from those who are willing to perform +the service. The horses and carts of freemen are not to be seized for royal +work without consent. The weirs in the Thames, Medway, and other rivers in +England are to be removed. + +(34-38) Uniformity of weights and measures is directed. Inquests are to be +granted freely. The sole wardship of minors who have other lords will not +be claimed by the King, except in special cases. No bailiff may force a man +to ordeal without witnesses. + +(39-40) No free man is to be taken, imprisoned, ousted of his land, +outlawed, banished, or hurt in any way save by the judgment of his peers, +or the law of the land. The King is not to sell, delay, or deny right or +justice to anyone. + +(41-42) Merchants may go out or come in without paying exorbitant customs. +All "lawful" men are to have a free right to pass in and out of England in +time of peace. + +(44-47) An inquiry into the Forest Laws and a reform of the forest abuses +are promised. All forests made in present reign to be disforested, and all +fences in rivers thrown down. + +(49-60) The foreign mercenaries of the King, all the detested gang that +came with horses and arms to the hurt of the realm, are to be sent out of +the country. The Welsh princes and the King of Scots (who had sided with +the barons) are to have justice done. A general amnesty for all political +offences arising from the struggle is made. + +The last three articles appointed twenty-five barons, chosen out of the +whole baronage, to watch over the keeping of the Charter. They were +empowered to demand that any breach of the articles should at once be put +right, and, in default to make war on the King till the matter was settled +to their satisfaction. Finally there was the oath to be taken on the part +of the King, and on the part of the barons that the articles of the Charter +should be observed in good faith according to their plain meaning. + +The Great Charter was signed, and then in a wild burst of rage John shouted +to his foreign supporters, "They have given me five-and-twenty over-kings!" + +Within a week of Runnymede the Great Charter was published throughout +England, but neither King nor barons looked for peace. John was ready to +break all oaths, and while he set about increasing his army of mercenaries, +he also appealed to the Pope, as his overlord, protesting that the Charter +had been wrested from him by force. + +Langton and the bishops left for Rome to attend a general council. Pope +Innocent declared the Charter annulled on the ground that both King and +barons had made the Pope overlord of England, and that consequently nothing +in the government could be changed without his consent. But with Langton, +the bishops, and the Papal legate all away at Rome, there was no one to +publish the Papal repudiation of the Charter, and the King and barons were +already at civil war. Pope Innocent III. was dead in the spring of 1216, +and John's wretched reign was over when the King lay dying at Newark in +October. + +Stephen Langton was back again at Canterbury in 1217, and for eleven more +years worked with William the Marshall and Hubert of Burgh to maintain +public peace and order during Henry III.'s boyhood. At Oxford, in 1223, the +Charter was confirmed afresh, and two years later it was solemnly +proclaimed again when the King wanted a new subsidy. As long as the great +statesmen were in office Henry III. was saved from the weakness that cursed +his rule in England for nearly forty years. But William the Marshall died +in 1219, Archbishop Stephen in 1228, and Hubert was dismissed from the +justiciarship in 1234. A horde of greedy aliens from Poitou fed at the +Court of Henry and devoured the substance of England, until men arose, as +Langton had arisen, to demand the enforcement of charters and a just +administration of the laws. + +Again a national party arises under the leadership of Simon of Montfort, +and in their victory over the King we get the beginnings of Parliamentary +government and popular representation. Every step forward is followed by +reaction, but the ground lost is recovered, and the next step taken marks +always a steady advance. Over and over again it has seemed that all the +liberties won in the past were lost, but looking back we can see that there +has been no lasting defeat of liberty. Only for a time have the forces of +oppression triumphed; it is soon found impossible in England to rest under +tyranny, or to govern without the consent of the governed. And every fresh +campaign for the restriction of kingly power brings us nearer the day of +democratic government. + + * * * * * + + +CHAPTER II + +THE BEGINNING OF PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION + +DEMOCRACY AND REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT + +To-day democracy takes the form of representative government in civilised +countries; and for representative government contend the nations and +peoples seeking democracy. + +The weak spots in all popular electoral systems are obvious, and the +election of representatives is always a subject for jokes and satire. It +could hardly be otherwise. For the best machinery in the world needs some +sort of sympathetic intelligence in the person who manipulates it, and the +machinery of popular elections can only be worked successfully with a large +measure of sincerity and good will. In the hands of the ambitious, the +self-seeking, and the unscrupulous, democratic politics are a machine for +frustrating popular representation, and as this state of things is always +prevalent somewhere, the humorist and the satirist naturally treat politics +without respect. + +But in spite of all its faults and failings--glaring as these are--mankind +can at present devise nothing better than representative government, and +the abuse of power, the cunning, roguery, and corruption that too often +accompany popular elections and democratic administration, rather stir +honest men to action than make them incline to dictatorship and absolutism. + +The present notion about representative government is that it makes +possible the expression of popular will, and can ensure the fulfilment of +that will. In the thirteenth century, when we get the beginnings of +representative government, there is no question of the people making +positive proposals in legislation, but there is a distinct belief that the +consent of the governed ought to be obtained by the ruling power. The mere +legal maxim from the Code of Justinian, that "that which touches all shall +be approved by all,"[15] "becomes transmuted by Edward I. into a great +political and constitutional principle."[16] + +REPRESENTATIVE THEORY FIRST FOUND IN ECCLESIASTICAL ASSEMBLIES + +More than a century earlier the first recorded appearances of town +representatives are found in the Spanish Cortes of Aragon and Castile.[17] +St. Dominic makes a representative form of government the rule in his Order +of Preaching Friars, each priory sending two representatives to its +provincial chapter, and each province sending two representatives to the +general chapter of the Order. + +In England, Simon of Montfort, the son of Simon, the great warrior of the +Albigensian wars and the warm friend of Dominic, was in close association +with the friars. Hence there was nothing so very remarkable in Earl Simon +issuing writs for the Full Parliament of 1265 for the return of two +burgesses from each city and borough. He had seen representative government +at work among the friars in their chapters. Why should the plan be not +equally useful in the government of the country?[18] There is no evidence +that the summons to the burgesses was regarded as a revolutionary +proposal--so lightly comes political change in England. + +The name of Simon of Montfort, Earl of Leicester, must always be associated +with the beginning of representative government in England. Let us recall +how it was the great Earl came to be in power in 1265. + +THE MISRULE OF HENRY III. + +Henry III. was always in want of money, and his crew of royal parasites +from Poitou drained the exchequer. Over and over again the barons called on +the King to get rid of his favourites, and to end the misrule that +afflicted the country; and the King from time to time gave promises of +amendment. But the promises were always broken. As long as Henry could get +money he was averse from all constitutional reform. In 1258 the barons were +determined that a change must be made. "If the King can't do without us in +war, he must listen to us in peace," they declared. "And what sort of peace +is this when the King is led astray by bad counsellors, and the land is +filled with foreign tyrants who grind down native-born Englishmen?" + +William of Rishanger, a contemporary writer, expressed the popular feeling +in well-known verses: + + "The King that tries without advice to seek his country's weal + Must often fail; he cannot know the wants and woes they feel. + The Parliament must tell the King how he may serve them best, + And he must see their wants fulfilled and injuries redressed. + A King should seek his people's good and not his own sweet will. + Nor think himself a slave because men hold him back from ill." + +"The King's mistakes call for special treatment," said Richard, Earl of +Gloucester. + +SIMON OF MONTFORT, LEADER OF THE NATIONAL PARTY + +So that year a Parliament met in Oxford, in the Dominican Priory. It was +called the "Mad Parliament," because the barons all came to it fully armed, +and civil war seemed imminent. But Earl Simon and Richard of Gloucester +carried the barons with them in demanding reform. Henry was left without +supporters, and civil war was put off for five years. + +The work done at this Parliament of Oxford was an attempt to make the King +abide loyally by the Great Charter; and the Provisions of Oxford, as they +were called, set up a standing council of fifteen, by whom the King was to +be guided, and ordered that Parliament was to meet three times a year: at +Candlemas (February 2nd), on June 1st, and at Michaelmas. Four knights were +to be chosen by the King's lesser freeholders in each county to attend this +Parliament, and the baronage was to be represented by twelve commissioners. + +It was an oligarchy that the Provisions of Oxford established, "intended +rather to fetter the King than to extend or develop the action of the +community at large. The baronial council clearly regards itself as +competent to act on behalf of all the estates of the realm, and the +expedient of reducing the national deliberations to three sessions of +select committees betrays a desire to abridge the frequent and somewhat +irksome duty of attendance in Parliament rather than to share the central +legislative and deliberative power with the whole body of the people. It +must, however, be remembered that the scheme makes a very indistinct claim +to the character of a final arrangement."[19] + +For a time things went better in England. The aliens at Henry's Court fled +over-seas, and their posts were filled by Englishmen. Parliament also +promised that the vassals of the nobles should have better treatment, and +that the sheriffs should be chosen by the shire-moots, the county +freeholders. + +But Henry's promises were quickly broken, and war broke out on the Welsh +borders between Simon of Montfort's friend Llewellyn and Mortimer and the +Marchers. Edward, Prince of Wales, stood by the Provisions of Oxford for a +few years, but supported his father when the latter refused to re-confirm +the Provisions in 1263. As a last resource to prevent civil war, Simon and +Henry agreed to appeal to King Louis of France to arbitrate on the +fulfilment of the Provisions. The Pope had already absolved Henry from +obedience to the Provisions, and the Award of Louis, given at Amiens and +called the _Mise of Amiens_, was entirely in Henry's favour. It annulled +the Provisions of Oxford, left the King free to appoint his own ministers, +council, and sheriffs, to employ aliens, and to enjoy power uncontrolled. +But the former charters of the realm were declared inviolate, and no +reprisals were to take place. + +To Simon and most of the barons the Award was intolerable, and when Henry +returned from France with a large force ready to take the vengeance which +the Award had forbidden, civil war could not be prevented. London rallied +to Simon, and Oxford, the Cinque Ports, and the friars were all on the side +of the barons against the King. + +On May 14th, 1264, a pitched battle at Lewes ended in complete victory for +Simon, and found the King, Prince Edward, and the kinsmen and chief +supporters of the Crown prisoners in his hands. + +Peace was made, and a treaty--the _Mise of Lewes_--drawn up and signed. +Once more the King promised to keep the Provisions and Charters, and to +dismiss the aliens. He also agreed to live thriftily till his debts were +paid, and to leave his sons as hostages with Earl Simon. + +Simon at once set about the work of reform. The King's Standing, or Privy, +Council was reconstituted, and the Parliamentary Commissioners were +abolished, "for Simon held it as much a man's duty to think and work for +his country as to fight for it." A marked difference is seen between +Simon's policy at Oxford and the policy after Lewes. The Provisions of 1258 +were restrictive. The Constitution of 1264 deliberately extended the limits +of Parliament. "Either Simon's views of a Constitution had rapidly +developed, or the influences which had checked them in 1258 were removed. +Anyhow, he had genius to interpret the mind of the nation, and to +anticipate the line which was taken by later progress."[20] What Simon +wanted was the approval of all classes of the community for his plans, and +to that end he issued writs for the Parliament--the _Full Parliament_--of +1265. + +The great feature of this Parliament was that for the first time the +burgesses of each city and borough were summoned to send two +representatives. In addition, two knights were to come from each shire, and +clergy and barons as usual--though in the case of the earls and barons only +twenty-three were invited, for Simon had no desire for the presence of +those who were his enemies. The Full Parliament sat till March, and then +two months later war had once more blazed out. Earl Gilbert of Gloucester +broke away from Simon, Prince Edward escaped from custody, and these two +joined Lord Mortimer and the Welsh Marchers. + +On August 4th Edward surprised and routed the army of the younger Simon +near Kenilworth, and then advanced to crush the great Earl, who was +encamped at Evesham, waiting to join forces with his son. All hope of +escape for Earl Simon was lost, and he was outnumbered by seven to two. But +fly he would not. One by one the barons who stood by Simon were cut down, +but though wounded and dismounted, the great Earl "fought on to the last +like a giant for the freedom of England, till a foot soldier stabbed him in +the back under the mail, and he was borne down and slain." For three hours +the unequal fight lasted in the midst of storm and darkness, and when it +was over the Grey Friars carried the mangled body of the dead Earl into the +priory at Evesham, and laid it before the high altar, for the poorer clergy +and the common people all counted Simon of Montfort for a saint. + +"Those who knew Simon praise his piety, admire his learning, and extol his +prowess as a knight and skill as a general. They tell of his simple fare +and plain russet dress, bear witness to his kindly speech and firm +friendship to all good men, describe his angry scorn for liars and unjust +men, and marvel at his zeal for truth and right, which was such that +neither pleasure nor threats nor promises could turn him aside from keeping +the oath he swore at Oxford; for he held up the good cause 'like a pillar +that cannot be moved, and, like a second Josiah, esteemed righteousness the +very healing of his soul.' As a statesman he wished to bind the King to +rule according to law, and to make the King's Ministers responsible to a +Full Parliament; and though he did not live to see the success of his +policy, he had pointed out the way by which future statesmen might bring it +about."[21] + +In the hour of Simon's death it might seem that the cause of good +government was utterly lost, and for a time Henry triumphed with a fierce +reaction. But the very barons who had turned against Simon were quite +determined that the Charters should be observed, and Edward was to show, on +his coming to the throne, that he had grasped even more fully than Simon +the notion of a national representative assembly, and that he accepted the +principle, "that which touches all shall be approved by all." + +Henry III. died in 1272, and it was not till two years later that Edward I. +was back in England from the crusades to take up the crown. It was an age +of great lawgivers; an age that saw St. Louis ruling in France, Alfonso the +Wise in Castile, the Emperor Frederick II.--the Wonder of the World--in +Sicily. In England Edward shaped the Constitution and settled for future +times the lines of Parliamentary representative government. + +EDWARD I.'S MODEL PARLIAMENT, 1295 + +For the first twenty years Edward's Parliaments were great assemblies of +barons and knights, and it was not till 1295 that the famous Model +Parliament was summoned. "It is very evident that common dangers must be +met by measures concerted in common," ran the writ to the bishops. Every +sheriff was to cause two knights to be elected from each shire, two +citizens from each city, two burgesses from each borough. The clergy were +to be fully represented from each cathedral and each diocese. + +Hitherto Parliament, save in 1265, had been little else than a feudal +court, a council of the King's tenants; it became, after 1295, a national +assembly. Edward's plan was that the three estates--clergy, barons, and +commons: those who pray, those who fight, and those who work--should be +represented. But the clergy always stood aloof, preferring to meet in their +own houses of convocation; and the archbishops, bishops, and greater abbots +only attended because they were great holders of land and important feudal +lords. + +Although the knights of the shire were of much the same class as the +barons, the latter received personal summons to attend, and the knights +joined with the representatives of the cities and boroughs. So the two +Houses of Parliament consisted of barons and bishops--lords spiritual and +lords temporal--and knights and commons; and we have to-day the House of +Lords and the House of Commons; the former, as in the thirteenth century, +lords spiritual and temporal, the latter, representatives from counties and +boroughs. + +The admission of elected representatives was to move, in course of time, +the centre of government from the Crown to the House of Commons; but in +Edward I.'s reign Parliament was just a larger growth of the King's +Council--the Council that Norman and Plantagenet kings relied on for +assistance in the administration of justice and the collection of revenue. +The judges of the supreme court were always summoned to Parliament, as the +law lords sit in the Upper House to-day. + +Money, or rather the raising of money, was the main cause for calling a +Parliament. The clergy at first voted their own grants to the Crown in +convocation, but came to agree to pay the taxes voted by Lords and Commons, +And Lords and Commons, instead of making separate grants, joined in a +common grant. + +"And, as the bulk of the burden fell upon the Commons, they adopted a +formula which placed the Commons in the foreground. The grant was made by +the Commons, with the assent of the Lords spiritual and temporal. This +formula appeared in 1395, and became the rule. In 1407, eight years after +Henry IV. came to the throne, he assented to the important principle that +money grants were to be initiated by the House of Commons, were not to be +reported to the King until both Houses were agreed, and were to be reported +by the Speaker of the Commons' House. This rule is strictly observed at the +present day. When a money bill, such as the Finance bill for the year or +the Appropriation bill, has been passed by the House of Commons and agreed +to by the House of Lords, it is, unlike all other bills, returned to the +House of Commons."[22] The Speaker, with his own hand, delivers all money +bills to the Clerk of Parliaments, the officer whose business it is to +signify the royal assent. + +In addition to voting money, the Commons, on the assembly of Parliament, +would petition for the redress of grievances. In the thirteenth and +fourteenth centuries, they were not legislators, but petitioners for +legislation; and as it often happened that their petitions were not granted +in the form they asked, it became a matter of bitter complaint that the +laws did not correspond with the petitions. Henry V. in 1414 granted the +request that "nothing should be enacted to the petition of the Commons +contrary to their asking, whereby they should be bound without their +assent"; and from that time it became customary for bills to be sent up to +the Crown instead of petitions, leaving the King the alternative of assent +or reaction. + +THE NOBILITY PREDOMINANT IN PARLIAMENT + +In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the power of Parliament was +strong enough to force the abdication of two kings--Edward II. and Richard +II.--but not strong enough to free the land of the turbulent authority of +the nobles. This authority went down in the struggles of the Lancastrians +and Yorkists. + +"The bloody faction fights known as the Wars of the Roses brought the +Plantagenet dynasty to a close, weeded out the older nobility, and cleared +the way for a new form of monarchy."[23] + +"The high nobility killed itself out. The great barons who adhered to the +'Red Rose' or the 'White Rose,' or who fluctuated from one to the other, +became poorer, fewer, and less potent every year. When the great struggle +ended at Bosworth, a large part of the greatest combatants were gone. The +restless, aspiring, rich barons, who made the civil war, were broken by it. +Henry VII. attained a kingdom in which there was a Parliament to advise, +but scarcely a Parliament to control."[24] + +It is important to note the ascendancy of the barons in the medieval +Parliaments, and their self-destruction in the Wars of the Roses. Unless we +realise how very largely the barons were the Parliament, it is difficult to +understand how it came about that Parliament was so utterly impotent under +the Tudors. The Wars of the Roses killed off the mighty parliamentarians, +and it took a hundred years to raise the country landowners into a party +which, under Eliot, Hampden, and Pym, was to make the House of Commons +supreme. + +"The civil wars of many years killed out the old councils (if I might so +say): that is, destroyed three parts of the greater nobility, who were its +most potent members, tired the small nobility and gentry, and overthrew the +aristocratic organisation on which all previous effectual resistance to the +sovereign had been based."[25] + +To get an idea of the weakness of Parliament when the Tudors ruled, we have +but to suppose at the present day a Parliament deprived of all front-bench +men on both sides of the House, and of the leaders of the Irish and Labour +parties, and a House of Lords deprived of all Ministers and ex-Ministers. + +THE MEDIEVAL NATIONAL ASSEMBLIES + +Before passing to the Parliamentary revival of the seventeenth century, +there still remain one or two points to be considered relating to the early +national assemblies of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. + +(1) _Who were the electors in the Middle Ages?_--In the counties, all who +were entitled to attend and take part in the proceedings of the county +court had the right of electing the knight of the shire; and "it is most +probable, on the evidence of records, on the analogies of representative +usage, and on the testimony of later facts, that the knights of the shire +were elected by the full county court."[26] + +The county court or shire-moot not only elected knights for Parliament; it +often enough elected them for local purposes as well. The county coroner +was elected in similar fashion by the county. All the chief tenants and +small freeholders were therefore the county electors; but the +tenants-in-chief (who held their lands from the Crown) and the knights of +the county had naturally considerably more influence than the smaller men. +"The chief lord of a great manor would have authority with his tenants, +freeholders as they might be, which would make their theoretical equality a +mere shadow, and would, moreover, be exercised all the more easily because +the right which it usurped was one which the tenant neither understood nor +cared for."[27] + +It is difficult to decide to what extent the smaller freeholders could take +an active interest in the affairs of the county. As for the office of +knight of the shire, there was no competition in the thirteenth or +fourteenth century for the honour of going to Parliament, and it is likely +enough that the sheriff, upon whom rested the responsibility for the +elections, would in some counties be obliged to nominate and compel the +attendance of an unwilling candidate. + +(2) _Payment of Parliamentary Representatives._--The fact that Members of +Parliament were paid by their constituents in the thirteenth, fourteenth, +and fifteenth centuries[28] made certain small freeholders as anxious not +to be included in the electorate as others were anxious not to be elected +to Parliament. It was recognised as "fair that those persons who were +excluded from the election should be exempt from contribution to the wages. +And to many of the smaller freeholders the exemption from payment would be +far more valuable than the privilege of voting."[29] But the Commons +generally petitioned for payment to be made by all classes of freeholders, +and when all allowance has been made for varying customs and for local +diversities and territorial influence, it is safe to take it that the +freeholders were the body of electors. + +In 1430, the eighth year of Henry VI., an Act was passed ordering that +electors must be resident in the country, and must have free land or +tenement to the value of 40s. a year at least; and this Act was in +operation till 1831. + +The county franchise was a simple and straightforward matter compared with +the methods of electing representatives from the boroughs. All that the +sheriff was ordered to do by writ was to provide for the return of two +members for each city or borough in his county; the places that were to be +considered as boroughs were not named. In the Middle Ages a town might have +no wish to be taxed for the wages of its Parliamentary representative, and +in that case would do its best to come to an arrangement with the sheriff. +(It was not till the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that a +considerable increase of boroughs took place. The Tudors created "pocket" +and "rotten" boroughs in order to have the nominees of the Crown in +Parliament.) The size of the borough bore no relation to its membership +till the Reform Act of the nineteenth century, and as the selection of +towns to be represented was arbitrary, so the franchise in the towns was +equally unsettled. One or two places had a wide franchise, others confined +the vote to freemen and corporation members. But in spite of the +extraordinary vagaries of the borough franchise, and the arbitrary +selection of towns to be represented, these early medieval Parliaments +really did in an imperfect way represent the nation--all but the peasants +and artisans. + +"Our English Parliaments were _un_symmetrical realities. They were elected +anyhow. The sheriff had a considerable licence in sending writs to +boroughs, that is, he could in part pick its constituencies; and in each +borough there was a rush and scramble for the franchise, so that the +strongest local party got it whether few or many. But in England at that +time there was a great and distinct desire to know the opinion of the +nation, because there was a real and close necessity. The nation was wanted +to do something--to assist the sovereign in some war, to pay some old debt, +to contribute its force and aid in the critical juncture of the time. It +would not have suited the ante-Tudor kings to have had a fictitious +assembly; they would have lost their sole _feeler_, their only instrument +for discovering national opinion. Nor could they have manufactured such an +assembly if they wished. Looking at the mode of election, a theorist would +say that these Parliaments were but 'chance' collections of influential +Englishmen. There would be many corrections and limitations to add to that +statement if it were wanted to make it accurate, but the statement itself +hits exactly the principal excellence of these Parliaments. If not 'chance' +collections of Englishmen, they were 'undesigned' collections; no +administrations made them, or could make them. They were bona fide +counsellors, whose opinion might be wise or unwise, but was anyhow of +paramount importance, because their co-operation was wanted for what was in +hand."[30] + +(3) _The political position of women in the Middle Ages._--Abbesses were +summoned to the convocations of clergy in Edward I.'s reign. Peeresses were +permitted to be represented by proxy in Parliament. The offices of sheriff, +high constable, governor of a royal castle, and justice of the peace have +all been held by women. In fact, the lady of the manor had the same rights +as the lord of the manor, and joined with men who were freeholders in +electing knights of the shire without question of sex disability.[31] (A +survival of the medieval rights of women may be seen in the power of women +to present clergy to benefices in the Church of England.) + +In the towns women were members of various guilds and companies equally +with men, and were burgesses and freewomen. Not till 1832 was the word +"male" inserted before "persons" in the charters of boroughs. "Never before +has the phrase 'male persons' appeared in any statute of the realm. By this +Act (the Reform Bill), therefore, women were technically disfranchised for +the first time in the history of the English Constitution. The privilege of +abstention was converted into the penalty of exclusion." + +NO THEORY OF DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE AGES + +The years of Simon of Montfort and Edward I., which saw the beginnings of a +representative national assembly, were not a time of theoretical discussion +on political rights. The English nation, indeed, has ever been averse from +political theories. The notion of a carefully balanced constitution was +outside the calculations of medieval statesmen, and the idea of political +democracy was not included among their visions. + +"Even the scholastic writers, amid their calculations of all possible +combinations of principles in theology and morals, well aware of the +difference between the 'rex politicus' who rules according to law, and the +tyrant who rules without it, and of the characteristics of monarchy, +aristocracy, and democracy, with their respective corruptions, contented +themselves for the most part with balancing the spiritual and secular +powers, and never broached the idea of a growth into political +enfranchisement. Yet, in the long run, this has been the ideal towards +which the healthy development of national life in Europe has constantly +tended, only the steps towards it have not been taken to suit a +preconceived theory."[32] + +Each step towards democracy has been taken "to suit the convenience of +party or the necessities of kings, to induce the newly admitted classes to +give their money, to produce political contentment." + +The only two principles that are apparent in the age-long struggles for +political freedom in England, that are recognised and acknowledged, are: +(1) That that which touches all shall be approved by all; (2) that +government rests on the consent of the governed. Over and over again these +two principles may be seen at work. + + * * * * * + + +CHAPTER III + +POPULAR INSURRECTION IN ENGLAND + +GENERAL RESULTS OF POPULAR RISINGS + +Popular insurrection has never been successful in England; a violent death +and a traitor's doom have been the lot of every leader of the common people +who took up arms against the Government. The Civil War that brought Charles +I. to the scaffold, and the Revolution that deposed James II. and set +William of Orange on the throne, were the work of country gentlemen and +Whig statesmen, not of the labouring people. + +But if England has never seen popular revolution triumphant and democracy +set up by force of arms, the earlier centuries witnessed more than one +effort to gain by open insurrection some measure of freedom for the working +people of the land. + +No other way than violent resistance seemed possible to peasants and +artisans in the twelfth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, if +their wrongs were to be mitigated and their rulers to be called to account. + +Langton and Simon of Montfort had placed some check on the power of the +Crown, had laid the foundations of political liberty, and marked the road +to be travelled; but the lot of the labouring people remained unheeded and +voiceless in the councils of the nation. What could they do but take up +arms to end an intolerable oppression? + +WILLIAM FITZOSBERT, CALLED LONGBEARD, 1196 + +The first serious protest came from the London workmen in the reign of +Richard I.; and FitzOsbert, known as Longbeard, was the spokesman of the +popular discontent. + +The King wanted money, chiefly for his crusades in Palestine. He had no +inclination to personal government, and the business of ruling England was +in the hands of Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, the justiciar or +King's lieutenant. Richard left England for Normandy in 1194, and returned +no more. England to him was a country where money could be raised, a +subject-province to be bled by taxation. Archbishop Hubert did his best to +satisfy the royal demands; and though by his inquisitions "England was +reduced to poverty from one sea to the other"--it is estimated that more +than L1,000,000 was sent to Richard in two years--the King was left +unsatisfied. The nation generally came to hate the Archbishop's taxation, +the Church suffered by his neglect, and he was finally compelled to resign +the justiciarship. + +It was the London rising, under FitzOsbert's leadership, that directly +caused Archbishop Hubert's retirement, and FitzOsbert is notable as the +first of the long line of agitators. + +The political importance of the capital was seen in the reigns of Cnut and +William the Conqueror. It was conspicuous on the arrival of Stephen in +1135, and its influence on national politics lasted till the middle of the +nineteenth century.[33] + +By its charter London had the right of raising taxes for the Crown in its +own way, and in 1196 the method proposed by the Corporation provoked the +outbreak. "When the aldermen assembled according to usage in full hustings +for the purpose of assessing the taxes, the rulers endeavoured to spare +their own purses and to levy the whole from the poor" (Hoveden). + +The poorer citizens were voteless, and the plan of the aldermen was to levy +the tallages per head, and not in proportion to the property of the +inhabitants. This meant, practically, that the whole, except a very small +fraction of the sum to be raised, must be paid by the working people. + +Thereupon FitzOsbert protested, and the people rose in arms against the +demand. + +FitzOsbert was an old crusader, and he was something of a lawyer and a +powerful speaker. Not a rich man by any means, FitzOsbert was yet a member +of the city council when, "burning with zeal for justice and fair play, he +made himself the champion of the poor." To his enemies he was a demagogue +and disreputable--so Ralph de Diceto, Dean of St. Paul's at that time, +described him. To others of more popular sympathies he was heroic and died +a martyr's death. Across the centuries he is seen as "an agitator"--the +first English agitator, the first man to stand up boldly against the +oppression of the common people. This palpably unjust taxation of the poor +was intolerable to FitzOsbert. + +Fifteen thousand men banded themselves together in London under an oath +that they would stand by each other and by their leader; and FitzOsbert, +after a vain journey to Normandy to arouse Richard's attention to the +wrongs of his subjects, bade open defiance to the justiciar and his +tax-gatherers. + +For a time the Archbishop's men were powerless, but weakness crept in +amongst the citizens, and the aldermen were naturally on the side of +constituted authority. FitzOsbert's success meant a readjustment of +taxation quite unpalatable to the City Fathers. + +In the end FitzOsbert was deserted by all but a handful of his followers +and fled with them for sanctuary to the church of St. Mary-le-Bow in +Cheapside. Pursued by the officers of the law, FitzOsbert climbed up into +the tower of the church, and to fetch him down orders were given to set the +church on fire. This was done, and the only chance of life that now +remained for the rebels was to get out of the church and cut their way +through the ranks of their enemies. + +At the church door FitzOsbert was struck down, and his little company +quickly overpowered. + +Heavily chained, and badly wounded, FitzOsbert was carried off to the +Tower, to be tried and sentenced to a traitor's death without delay. + +A few days later--it was just before Easter--FitzOsbert was stripped naked, +and dragged at the tail of a horse over the rough streets of London to +Tyburn. He was dead before the place of execution was reached, but the +body, broken and mangled, was hung up in chains under the gallows elm all +the same; and nine of his companions were hanged with him. + +The very people who had fallen away from their leader in the day of his +need now counted FitzOsbert for a saint, and pieces of his gibbet and of +the bloodstained earth underneath the tree were carried away and treasured +as sacred relics. It was alleged that miracles were performed when these +relics were touched--so wide was now the popular reverence for the dead +champion of the poor. + +Archbishop Hubert put a stop to this devotion by ordering sermons to be +preached on FitzOsbert's iniquities; and an alleged death-bed confession, +containing an account of many evil deeds, was published. It is likely +enough that an old crusader had plenty of sins to answer for, but +FitzOsbert's one crime before the law was that he had taught the people of +London to stand up and resist by force of arms the payment of taxes--taxes +levied with gross unfairness in popular judgment. + +The monks of Canterbury, to whom the church of St. Mary-le-Bow in Cheapside +belonged, had long had their own quarrels with Archbishop Hubert, and on +this firing of their church, and the violation of sanctuary, they appealed +to the King and the Pope--Innocent III.--that Hubert should give up his +political work and attend exclusively to his duties as Archbishop. Both the +Pope and the great barons were against him, and in 1198 Archbishop Hubert +was compelled to resign the judiciarship. + +THE PEASANT REVOLT AND ITS LEADERS, 1381 + +The great uprising of the peasants in 1381 was a very different matter from +the local insurrection made by FitzOsbert. Two centuries had passed, and in +those centuries the beginnings of representative government had been set up +and some recognition of the rights of the peasantry had been admitted in +the Great Charter. + +The Peasant Revolt was national. It was carefully prepared and skilfully +organised, and its leaders were men of power and ability--men of character. +It was not only a definite protest against positive evils, but a vigorous +attempt to create a new social order--to substitute a social democracy for +feudal government.[34] + +The old feudal order had been widely upset by the Black Death in 1349, and +the further ravages of pestilence in 1361 and 1369. The heavy mortality +left many country districts bereft of labour, and landowners were compelled +to offer higher wages if agriculture was to go on. In vain Parliament +passed Statutes of Labourers to prevent the peasant from securing an +advance. These Acts of Parliament expressly forbade a rise in wages; the +landless man or woman was "to serve the employer who shall require him to +do so, and take only the wages which were accustomed to be taken in the +neighbourhood two years before the pestilence." The scarcity of labour +drove landowners to compete for the services of the labourer, in spite of +Parliament. + +Discontent was rife in those years of social change. The Statutes of +Labourers were ineffectual; but they galled the labourers and kept serfdom +alive. The tenants had their grievance because they were obliged to give +labour-service to their lords. Freehold yeomen, town workmen, and +shopkeepers were irritated by heavy taxation, and vexed by excessive market +tolls. All the materials were at hand for open rebellion, and leaders were +found as the days went by to kindle and direct the revolt. + +John Ball, an itinerant priest, who came from St. Mary's, at York, and then +made Colchester the centre of his wanderings, spent twenty years organising +the revolt, and three times was excommunicated and imprisoned by the +Archbishop of Canterbury for teaching social "errors, schisms, and +scandals," but was in no wise contrite or cast down. + +Chief of Ball's fellow-agitators were John Wraw, in Suffolk, Jack Straw, in +Essex--both priests these--William Grindcobbe, in Hertford, and Geoffrey +Litster, in Norfolk. In Kent lived Wat Tyler, of whom nothing is told till +the revolt was actually afire, but who at once was acknowledged leader and +captain by the rebel hosts. + +From village to village went John Ball in the years that preceded the +rising, organising the peasants into clubs, and stirring the people with +revolutionary talk. It was the way of this vagrant priest to preach to the +people on village greens, and his discourses were all on the same text--"In +the beginning of the world there were no bondmen, all men were created +equal."[35] Inequalities of wealth and social position were to be ended: + +"Good people, things will never go well in England, so long as goods be not +kept in common, and so long as there be villeins and gentlemen. By what +right are they whom men call lords greater folk than we? If all come from +the same father and mother, Adam and Eve, how can they say or prove that +they are better than we, if it be not that they make us gain for them by +our toil what they spend in their pride? + +"They are clothed in velvet, and are warm in their furs and ermines, while +we are covered in rags. They have wine and spices and fair bread, and we +oatcake and straw, and water to drink. They have leisure and fine houses; +we have pain and labour, the wind and rain in the fields. And yet it is of +us and of our toil that these men hold their state. + +"We are called slaves; and if we do not perform our services, we are +beaten, and we have not any sovereign to whom we can complain, or who +wishes to hear us and do us justice." + +The poet, William Langland, in "Piers Plowman," dwelt on the social wrongs +of the time; Ball was fond of quoting from Langland, and of harping on a +familiar couplet: + + "When Adam delved and Eve span, + Who was then the gentleman?" + +Besides the sermons, some of the rhymed letters that John Ball sent about +the country have been preserved: + + "John Ball, Priest of St. Mary's, greets well all manner of men, and + bids them in the name of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, to + stand together manfully in truth. Help truth and truth shall help you. + + "John Ball greeteth you all, + And doth to understand he hath rung your bell. + Now with right and might, will and skill, + God speed every dell. + + John the Miller asketh help to turn his mill right: + He hath ground small, small: + The King's Son of Heaven will pay for it all. + Look thy mill go right, with its four sails dight. + + With right and with might, with skill and with will, + And let the post stand in steadfastness. + Let right help might, and skill go before will, + Then shall our mill go aright; + But if might go before right, and will go before skill, + Then is our mill mis-a-dight." + +Sometimes it is under the signature of John Trueman that John Ball writes: + + "Beware ere ye be woe; + Know your friend from your foe; + Take enough and cry "Ho!" + And do well and better and flee from sin, + And seek out peace and dwell therein-- + So biddeth John Trueman and all his fellows." + +A more definite note was struck when it seemed to Ball and his colleagues +that the time was ripe for revolution, and the word was given that appeal +must be made to the boy-king--Richard was only eleven years old when he +came to the throne in 1377. + +"Let us go to the King, and remonstrate with him, telling him we must have +it otherwise, or we ourselves shall find the remedy. He is young. If we +wait on him in a body, all those who come under the name of serf, or are +held in bondage, will follow us in the hope of being free. When the King +shall see us we shall obtain a favourable answer, or we must then ourselves +seek to amend our condition." + +In another letter John Ball greets John Nameless, John the Miller, and John +Carter, and bids them stand together in God's name, and beware of guile: he +bids Piers Plowman "go to his work and chastise well Hob the Robber (Sir +Robert Hales, the King's Treasurer); and take with you John Trueman and all +his fellows, and look that you choose one head and no more." + +These letters and the preaching were accepted by willing minds. John Ball +was in prison--in the jail of Archbishop Sudbury at Maidstone--in the +spring of 1381, but the peasants were organised and ready to revolt. If Wat +Tyler is the recognised leader of the rebel forces--"the one head"--John +Ball's was the work of preparing the uprising. The vagrant priest had rung +his bell to some purpose. In every county, from Somerset to York, the +peasants flocked together, "some armed with clubs, rusty swords, axes, with +old bows reddened by the smoke of the chimney corner, and odd arrows with +only one feather." + +At Whitsuntide, early in June, 1381, the great uprising began--the Hurling +time of the peasants--long to be remembered with horror by the governing +classes. A badly ordered poll-tax was the match that kindled the fire. + +The poll-tax was first levied, in 1377, on all over fourteen years of age. +Two years later it was graduated, every man and woman of the working class +being rated at 4d., and dukes and archbishops at L6 13s. 4d. More money was +still wanted by the Government, and early in 1381, John of Gaunt, the chief +man in the realm, called Parliament together at Northampton, and demanded +L160,000. Parliament agreed that L100,000 should be raised, and the +clergy--owning a third of the land--promised L60,000. But the only way of +raising the L100,000 that the Government could think of was by another +poll-tax, and this time everybody over fifteen was required to pay 1s. Of +course, the thing was impossible. In many parishes the mere returns of +population were not filled in; numbers evaded payment--which spelt ruin--by +leaving their homes. L22,000 was all that came to hand. + +Then a man named John Legge came to the assistance of the Government, and +was appointed chief commissioner, and empowered to collect the tax. + +The methods of Legge and his assistants provoked hostility, and when the +villagers of Fobbing, Corringham, and Stanford-le-Hope, in Essex, were +summoned to meet the commissioner at Brentwood, their reply was to kill the +collectors. + +The Government answered this by sending down Chief Justice Belknap to +punish the offenders, but the people drove the chief justice out of the +place, and Belknap was glad to escape with his life. + +This was on Whit-Sunday, June 2nd, and two days later the revolt had spread +to Kent; Gravesend and Dartford were in tumult. In one place Sir Simon +Burley, a friend of Richard II., seized a workman, claiming him as a +bondservant, and refusing to let him go under a fine of L300; while at +Dartford a tax-collector had made trouble by gross indecency to the wife +and daughter of one John Tyler.[36] + +Thereupon this John Tyler, "being at work in the same town tyling of an +house, when he heard thereof, caught his lathing staff in his hand, and ran +reaking home; where, reasoning with the collector, who made him so bold, +the collector answered with stout words, and strake at the tyler; whereupon +the tyler, avoiding the blow, smote the collector with his lathing staff, +so that the brains flew out of his head. Wherethrough great noise arose in +the streets, and the poor people being glad, everyone prepared to support +the said John Tyler." + +Now, with the fire of revolt in swift blaze, it was for the men of Kent to +see that it burned under some direction. Authority and discipline were +essential if the rising was not to become mob rule or mere anarchy, and if +positive and intolerable wrongs were to find remedies. + +At Maidstone, on June 7th--after Rochester Castle had been stormed, its +prisoners set free and Sir John Newton its governor placed in safe +custody--Wat Tyler was chosen captain of the rebel hosts. + +History tells us nothing of the antecedents of this remarkable man. For +eight days, and eight days only, he plays his part on the stage of national +events: commands with authority a vast concourse of men; meets the King +face to face, and wrests from sovereignty great promises of reform; orders +the execution of the chief ministers of the Crown, and then, in what seems +to be the hour of triumph, is struck to the ground, and goes to his death. + +Under the accredited leadership of Wat Tyler the revolt at once took form. +Five days were spent in Kent before the peasant army marched on London. The +manor houses were attacked, and all rent rolls, legal documents, lists of +tenants and serfs destroyed. The rising was not a ferocious massacre like +the rising of the Jacquerie in France; there was no general massacre of +landlords, or reign of terror. The lawyers who managed the landowners' +estates were the enemy, and against them--against the instruments of +landlord tyranny--was the anger of the peasants directed. In the same way +John of Gaunt, and not the youthful King, was recognised as the evil +influence in government; and while a vow was taken by the men of Kent that +no man named "John" should be King of England, the popular cry was "King +Richard and the Commons," and all who joined in this were accounted friends +of the insurgent populace. + +Blackheath was reached on the evening of June 12th, and early the following +morning, which was Corpus Christi Day, John Ball--released by a thousand +hands from his prison at Maidstone--preached to the multitude on the work +before them: + +"Now is the opportunity given to Englishmen, if they do but choose to take +it, of casting off the yoke they have borne so long, of winning the freedom +they have always desired. Wherefore, let us take good courage and behave +like the wise husbandman of scripture, who gathered the wheat into his +barn, but uprooted and burned the tares that had half-choked the good +grain. The tares of England are her oppressive rulers, and the time of +harvest has come. Ours it is to pluck up these tares and make away with +them all--the wicked lords, the unjust judges, the lawyers--every man, +indeed, who is dangerous to the common good. Then shall we all have peace +in our time and security for the future. For when the great ones have been +rooted up and cast away, all will enjoy equal freedom and nobility, rank +and power shall we have in common." + +Thirty-thousand men--yeomen, craftsmen, villeins, and peasants, were at +Blackheath, and these were soon joined by thousands more from Surrey. + +John Wraw and Grindcobbe came to consult with Wat Tyler, and then returned +to Suffolk and Hertford to announce that the hour had come to strike. + +The Marshalsea and King's Bench prisons, and the houses of ill-fame that +clustered round London Bridge, were destroyed before Wat Tyler led his army +into the city. An attempt to meet the King in conference was frustrated by +the royal counsellors. Richard came down in the royal barge as far as +Rotherhithe, but was dissuaded by Sir Robert Hales, and the Earls of +Suffolk, Salisbury, and Warwick, from "holding speech with the shoeless +ruffians." + +Richard rowed back swiftly to the Tower, and Tyler and his army swept into +London. The city was in the hands of the rebel captain, but the citizens +welcomed the invaders, and offered bread and ale when Tyler proclaimed that +death would be the instant punishment for theft. + +John of Gaunt's palace at the Savoy, on the river strand, was the first +place to be burnt; but Henry, Earl of Derby, John of Gaunt's son (eighteen +years later to reign as Henry IV., in place of Richard), was allowed to +pass out uninjured, and a wretched man caught in the act of stealing off +with a silver cup was promptly executed. + +The Savoy destroyed, the Temple--a hive of lawyers--was the next to be +burnt, and before nightfall the Fleet Prison and Newgate had been +demolished. + +Again Tyler demanded conference with the King, and Richard, lying in the +Tower with his counsellors, unable to prevent the work of conference, +boldly decided to come out and meet the rebels. Mile End was appointed for +the conference, and to Mile End Richard came with a very modest retinue. +The King was only fifteen, but he was the son of the Black Prince, and he +had both courage and cunning. He was fully aware that the people did not +lay on him responsibility for the sins of the Government. "If we measure +intellectual power by the greatest exertion it ever displays, rather than +by its average results, Richard II. was a man of considerable talents. He +possessed along with much dissimulation a decisive promptitude in seizing +the critical moment for action."[37] + +At Mile End Tyler stated the grievances of the people. But first he asked +that all traitors should be put to death, and to this the King agreed. + +Four positive articles of reform were put forward, and were at once +assented to by the King:-- + +1. A free and general pardon to all concerned in the rising. + +2. The total abolition of all villeinage (forced labour) and serfdom. + +3. An end to all tolls and market dues--"freedom to buy and sell in all +cities, burghs, mercantile towns, and other places within our kingdom of +England." + +4. All customary tenants to become leaseholders at a fixed rental of +fourpence an acre for ever. + +That all doubts might be removed, thirty clerks were set to work on the +spot to draw up charters of manumission, and banners were presented to each +county. At nightfall thousands returned home convinced that the old order +was ended, and that the Royal charters were genuine assurances of freedom. + +But Tyler and the bulk of the men of Kent and Surrey remained in the city. +It seemed to Wat Tyler that better terms still were to be wrung from the +King. It looked that night as though the insurrection had triumphed +completely. Not only were the charters signed and the royal promises given, +but several in high office, whom Tyler held to be "traitors," had gone to +their doom. Sir Robert Hales, the Treasurer, Archbishop Sudbury, the +Chancellor--a gentle and kindly old man, "lenient to heretics"--John Legge, +the hated poll-tax commissioner, with Appleton, John of Gaunt's chaplain, +and Richard Lyons, a thoroughly corrupt contractor of Edward III.'s reign, +were all dragged out of the Tower and beheaded on Tower Hill on Friday, +June 15th. + +On Tyler's request for another conference with Richard on the following +day, the King saw he had no choice but to yield. For the second time Wat +Tyler and Richard met face to face. The conference was held at Smithfield, +in the square outside St. Bartholomew's Priory. The King and two hundred +retainers, with Walworth the mayor, were on the east side of the square. +Tyler and his army were on the west side, opposite the Priory. + +In the open space Tyler, mounted on a little horse, presented his demands; +more sweeping were the reforms now asked for than those of the previous +day. + +"Let no law but the law of Winchester[38] prevail throughout the land, and +let no man be made an outlaw by the decree of judges and lawyers. Grant +also that no lord shall henceforth exercise lordship over the commons; and +since we are oppressed by so vast a horde of bishops and clerks, let there +be but one bishop in England; and let the property and goods of Holy Church +be divided fairly according to the needs of the people in each parish, +after in justice making suitable provision for the present clergy and +monks. Finally, let there be no more villeins in England, but grant us all +to be free and of one condition." + +Richard answered that he promised readily all that was asked, "if only it +be consistent with the regality of my Crown." He then bade the commons +return home, since their requests had been granted. + +Nobles and counsellors stood in sullen and silent anger at the King's +words, but were powerless to act. Tyler, conscious of victory, called for a +draught, and when his attendant brought him a mighty tankard of ale, the +rebel leader drank good-humouredly to "King Richard and the Commons." A +knight in the royal service, a "valet of Kent," was heard to mutter that +Wat Tyler was the greatest thief and robber in all the county, and Tyler +caught the abusive words, drew his dagger, and made for the man. + +Mayor Walworth, as angry as the nobles at the King's surrender, shouted +that he would arrest all who drew weapons in the King's presence; and on +Tyler striking at him impatiently, the Mayor drew a cutlass and slashed +back, wounding Tyler in the neck so that he fell from his horse. Before he +could recover a footing, two knights plunged their swords into him, and +Tyler, mortally wounded, could only scramble on to his little horse, ride a +yard or two, call on the commons to avenge him, and then drop--a dead +man.[39] + +And with Wat Tyler's death the whole rebellion collapsed. Confusion fell +upon the people at Smithfield. Some were for immediate attack, but when +Richard, riding out into the middle of the square, claimed that he and not +Tyler was their King, and bade them follow him into the fields towards +Islington, the great mass, convinced that Richard was honestly their +friend, obeyed. At nightfall they were scattered. + +Wat Tyler's body was taken into the Priory, and his head placed on London +Bridge. + +Walworth hastily gathered troops together, and the leader of the rebels +being dead, the nobles recovered their courage. + +The rising was over; the people without leaders were as sheep for the +slaughter. Jack Straw was taken in London and hanged without the formality +of a trial; and on June 22nd Tresilian, the new chief justice, went on a +special assize to try the rebels, and "showed mercy to none and made great +havock." The King's charters and promises were declared null and void when +Parliament met, and some hundreds of peasants were hanged in various parts +of the country. + +John Ball and Grindcobbe were hanged at St. Albans on July 15th, John Wraw +and Geoffrey Litster suffered the same fate. + +All that Wat Tyler and the peasants had striven for was lost; but the +rising was not quite in vain. For one thing, the poll-tax was stopped, and +the end of villeinage was hastened. + +The great uprising was the first serious demonstration of the English +people for personal liberty. "It taught the King's officers and gentle +folks that they must treat the peasants like men if they wished them to +behave quietly, and it led most landlords to set free their bondsmen, and +to take fixed money payments instead of uncertain services from their +customary tenants, so that in a hundred years' time there were very few +bondsmen left in England."[40] + +JACK CADE, CAPTAIN OF KENT, 1450 + +To understand the character and importance of the rising of the men of Kent +under Jack Cade in 1450, the first thing to be done is to clear the mind of +Shakespeare's travesty in _King Henry VI._, Part 2. In the play the name of +Cade has been handed down in obloquy, and all that he and his followers +aimed at caricatured out of recognition. The part that Jack Cade really +played in national affairs has no likeness to the low comedy performance +imagined by Shakespeare. + +It was a popular rising in 1450, but it was not a peasant revolt. Men of +substance in the county rallied to Cade's banner, and in many parishes in +Kent the village constable was employed to enrol willing recruits in the +army of disaffection.[41] + +The peasant revolt was at bottom a social movement, fostered and fashioned +by preachers of a social democracy. Cade's rising was provoked by +misgovernment and directed at political reform. It was far less +revolutionary in purpose than the revolt that preceded it, or the rising +under Ket a hundred years later. + +The discontent was general when Cade encamped on Blackheath with the +commons of Kent at the end of May, 1450. Suffolk, the best hated of Henry +VI.'s ministers, had already been put to death by the sailors of Dover, and +Lord Say-and-Sele, the Treasurer, was in the Tower under impeachment. +Ayscough, Bishop of Salisbury, another Minister, was hanged by his +infuriated flock in Wiltshire, and Bishop Moleyns, of Chichester, Keeper of +the Privy Seal, was executed in Portsmouth by a mob of sailors. Piracy +prevailed unchecked in the English Channel, and the highways inland were +haunted by robbers--soldiers back from France and broken in the wars. + +The ablest statesman of the day, the Duke of York, was banished from the +royal council, and there was a wide feeling that an improvement in +government was impossible until York was recalled. + +Whether Cade, who was known popularly as "Mortimer," was related to the +Duke of York, or was merely a country landowner, can never be decided. The +charges made against him after his death were not supported by a shred of +evidence, but it was necessary then for the Government to blacken the +character of the Captain of Kent for the utter discouragement of his +followers. All we _know_ of Cade is that by the Act of Attainder he must +have been a man of some property in Surrey--probably a squire or yeoman. + +The army that encamped on Blackheath numbered over 40,000, and included +squires, yeomen, county gentlemen, and at least two notable ecclesiastics +from Sussex, the Abbot of Battle and the Prior of Lewes. The testimony to +Cade's character is that he was the unquestioned and warmly respected +leader of the host. The Cade depicted by his enemies--a dissolute, +disreputable ruffian--was not the kind of man to have had authority as a +chosen captain over country gentlemen and clerical landowners in the +fifteenth century. + +The "Complaints" of the commons of Kent, drawn up at Blackheath and +forwarded to the King and his Parliament, then sitting at Westminster, +called attention in fifteen articles to the evils that afflicted the land. +These articles dealt with a royal threat to lay waste Kent in revenge for +the death of the Duke of Suffolk; the wasting of the royal revenue raised +by heavy taxation; the banishment of the Duke of York--"to make room for +unworthy ministers who would not do justice by law, but demanded bribes and +gifts"; purveyance of goods for the royal household without payment; arrest +and imprisonment on false charges of treason by persons whose goods and +lands were subsequently seized by the King's servants, who then "either +compassed their deaths or kept them in prison while they got possession of +their property by royal grant"; interference by "the great rulers of the +land" with the old right of free election of knights of the shire; the +mismanagement of the war in France. A certain number of purely local +grievances, chiefly concerned with the maladministration of justice, were +also included in the "Complaints," and five "Requests"--including the +abolition of the Statutes of Labourers--were added. + +Henry and his counsellors dismissed these "Complaints" with contempt. "Such +proud rebels," it was said, "should rather be suppressed and tamed with +violence and force than with fair words or amicable answer." But when the +royal troops moved into Kent to disperse the rising, Cade's army cut them +to pieces at Sevenoaks. Henry returned to London; his nobles rode away to +their country houses; and after a fruitless attempt at negotiations by the +Duke of Buckingham and the Archbishop of Canterbury,[42] the King himself +fled to Kenilworth--leaving London at the mercy of the Captain of Kent. + +On July 2nd Cade crossed London Bridge on horseback, followed by all his +army. The Corporation had already decided to offer no opposition to his +entry, and one of its members, Thomas Cocke, of the Drapers' Company--later +sheriff and M.P.--had gone freely between the camp at Blackheath and the +city, acting as mutual friend to the rebels and the citizens. All that Cade +required was that the foreign merchants in London should furnish him with a +certain number of arms and horses, "and 1,000 marks of ready money"; and +this was done. "So that it was found that the Captain and Kentishmen at +their being in the city did no hurt to any stranger."[43] + +On the old London stone, in Cannon Street, Cade laid his sword, in the +presence of the Mayor and a great multitude of people, and declared +proudly: "Now is Mortimer lord of this city." Then at nightfall he went +back to his headquarters at the White Hart Inn in Southwark. + +The following day Lord Say-and-Sele, and his son-in-law, Crowmer, Sheriff +of Kent, were removed by Cade's orders from the Tower to the Guildhall, +tried for "divers treasons" and "certain extortions," and quickly beheaded. +Popular hatred, not content with this, placed the heads of the fallen +minister and his son-in-law on poles, made them kiss in horrible embrace, +and then bore them off in triumph to London Bridge. + +A third man, one John Bailey, was also hanged for being a necromancer; and +as Cade had promised death to all in his army convicted of theft, it fell +out that certain "lawless men" paid the penalty for disobedience, and were +hanged in Southwark--where the main body of the army lay. + +Cade's difficulties began directly after Lord Say-and-Sele's execution. +London assented willingly to the death of an unpopular statesman, but had +no mind to provision an army of 50,000 men, and, indeed, had no liking for +the proximity of such a host. Plunder being forbidden, and strict +discipline the rule, the urgent question for the Captain of Kent was how +the army was to be maintained. + +Getting no voluntary help from the city. Cade decided that he must help +himself. He supped with a worthy citizen named Curtis in Tower Street on +July 4th, and insisted before he left that Curtis must contribute money for +the support of the Kentish men. Curtis complied--how much he gave we know +not--but he resented bitterly the demand, and he told the tale of his +wrongs to his fellow-merchants.[44] The result was that while Cade slept in +peace as usual at the White Hart, the Mayor and Corporation took counsel +with Lord Scales, the Governor of the Tower, and resolved that at all costs +the Captain of Kent and his forces must be kept out of the city. After the +treatment of Curtis the fear was that disorder and pillage might become +common. + +On the evening of Sunday, July 5th, and all through the night battle waged +hotly on London Bridge, which had been seized and fortified before Cade was +awake, and by the morning the rebels, unsuccessful in their attack, were +glad to agree to a hasty truce. + +The truce gave opportunity to Cardinal Kemp, Archbishop of York, the King's +Chancellor, to suggest a lasting peace to Cade. Messengers were sent +speedily from the Tower, where Kemp, with Archbishop Stafford, of +Canterbury, had stayed in safety, to the White Hart, urging a conference +"to the end that the civil commotions and disturbances might cease and +tranquillity be restored." + +Cade consented, and when the two Archbishops, with William Waynfleet, +Bishop of Winchester, met the Captain of Kent in the Church of St. +Margaret, Southwark, and promised that Parliament should give consideration +to the "Complaints" and "Requests" of the commons, and that a full pardon +should be given to all who would straightway return home, the rising was at +an end. + +Cade hesitated, and asked for the endorsement of the pardons by Parliament; +but this was plainly impossible because Parliament was not sitting. The +bulk of the commons were satisfied with their pardons, and with the promise +that Parliament would attend to their grievances. There was nothing to be +gained, it seemed, by remaining in arms. On July 8th, the rebel army had +broken up, taking the road back to the towns and villages, farms and +cottages in Kent, Sussex, and Surrey. Cade, with a small band of followers, +retreated to Rochester, and attempted without success, the capture of +Queenborough Castle. On the news that the commons had dispersed from +Southwark, the Government at once took the offensive. Alexander Iden was +appointed Sheriff of Kent, and, marrying Crowmer's widow, subsequently +gained considerable profit. Within a week John Cade was proclaimed by the +King's writ a false traitor throughout the countryside, and Sheriff Iden +was in eager pursuit--for a reward of 1,000 marks awaited the person who +should take Cade, alive or dead. + +Near Heathfield, in Sussex, Cade, broken and famished, was found by Iden, +and fought his last fight on July 13th, preferring to die sword in hand +than to perish by the hangman. He fell before the overwhelming odds of the +sheriff and his troops, and the body was immediately sent off to London for +identification. + +The landlady of the White Hart proved the identity of the dead captain, and +all that remained was to stick the head on London Bridge, and dispatch the +quartered body to Blackheath, Norwich, Salisbury and Gloucester for public +exhibition. + +Iden got the 1,000 marks reward and, in addition, the governorship of +Rochester Castle at a salary of L36 a year. + +By special Act of Attainder all Cade's goods, lands and tenements were made +forfeit to the Crown, and statements were published for the discrediting of +Cade's life. + +No allusion was made in Parliament to the "Complaints" and "Requests," and, +in spite of Cardinal Kemp's pardons, a number of men were hanged at +Canterbury and Rochester for their share in the rising, when Henry VI. and +his justices visited Kent in January, 1451. + +The revolt failed to amend the wretched misrule. It remained for civil war +to drive Henry VI. from the throne, and make Edward IV. of York his +successor. + +THE NORFOLK RISING UNDER ROBERT KET, 1549 + +A century after the rising of the commons of Kent came the last great +popular rebellion--the Norfolk Rising, led by Ket. This insurrection was +agrarian and social, concerned neither with the fierce theological +differences of the time, nor with the political rivalries of Protector +Somerset and his enemies in Edward VI.'s Council. + +At the beginning of the sixteenth century England was in the main a nation +of small farmers, but radical changes were taking place, and these changes +meant ruin to thousands of yeomen and peasants. + +The enclosure, by many large landowners, of the fields which for ages past +had been cultivated by the country people, the turning of arable land into +pasture, were the main causes of the distress.[45] Whole parishes were +evicted in some places and dwelling houses destroyed, and contemporary +writers are full of the miseries caused by these clearances. + +Acts of Parliament were passed in 1489 and 1515, prohibiting the "pulling +down of towns," and ordering the reversion of pasture lands to tillage, but +the legislation was ignored. Sir Thomas More, in his "Utopia" (1516), +described very vividly what the enclosures were doing to rural England; and +a royal commission, appointed by Cardinal Wolsey, reported in the following +year that more than 36,000 acres had been enclosed in seven Midland +counties. In some cases, waste lands only were enclosed, but landowners +were ordered to make restitution within forty days where small occupiers +had been dispossessed. Royal commissions and royal proclamations were no +more effective than Acts of Parliament. Bad harvests drove the Norfolk +peasantry to riot for food in 1527 and 1529. The dissolution of the +monasteries in 1536 and 1539 abolished a great source of charity for the +needy, and increased the social disorder. Finally, in 1547, came the +confiscation by the Crown of the property of the guilds and brotherhoods, +and the result of this enactment can only be realised by supposing the +funds of friendly societies, trade unions, and co-operative societies taken +by Government to-day without compensation. + +All that Parliament would do in the face of the starvation and unemployment +that brooded over many parts of England, was to pass penal legislation for +the homeless and workless--so that it seemed to many that Government had +got rid of Papal authority only to bring back slavery. The agrarian misery, +the violent changes in the order of church services and social customs, the +confiscation of the funds of the guilds, and the wanton spoiling of the +parish churches[46]--all these things drove the people to revolt. + +Early in 1549 the men of Devon and Cornwall took up arms for "the old +religion," and were hanged by scores. In Norfolk that same year the rising +under Ket was social, and unconcerned with religion. Lesser agrarian +disturbances took place in Somerset, Lincoln, Essex, Kent, Oxford, Wilts, +and Buckingham. But there was no cohesion amongst the insurgents, and no +organisation of the peasants such as England had seen under John Ball and +his companion in 1381. + +In 1548 Somerset, the Lord Protector, made an honest attempt to check the +rapacity of the landowners, but his proclamation and royal commission were +no more successful than Wolsey's had been, and only earned for the +Protector the hatred of the landowners. + +The Norfolk Rising was the one strong movement to turn the current that was +sweeping the peasants into destitution. It failed, as all popular +insurrection in England has failed, and it brought its leaders to the +gallows; but for six weeks hope lifted its head in the rebel camp outside +Norwich, and many believed that oppression and misery were to end. + +The rising began at Attleborough, on June 20th, when the people pulled down +the fences and hedges set up round the common fields. On July 7th, at the +annual feast in honour of St. Thomas of Canterbury, at Wymondham, a mighty +concourse of people broke down the fences at Hetherset, and then appealed +to Robert Ket and his brother to help them. + +Both the Kets were well-known locally. They were men of old family, +craftsmen, and landowners. Robert was a tanner by trade, William a butcher. +Three manors--valued at 1,000 marks, with a yearly income of L50--belonged +to Robert Ket: church lands mostly, leased from the Earl of Warwick. + +Ket saw that only under leadership and guidance could the revolt become a +revolution, and he threw himself into the cause of his poorer neighbours +with whole-hearted fervour. "I am ready," he said, "and will be ready at +all times to do whatever, not only to repress, but to subdue the power of +great men. Whatsoever lands I have enclosed shall again be made common unto +ye and all men, and my own hands shall first perform it. You shall have me, +if you will, not only as a companion, but as a captain; and in the doing of +the so great a work before us, not only as a fellow, but for a leader, +author, and principal." + +Ket's leadership was at once acclaimed with enthusiasm by the thousand men +who formed the rebel band at the beginning of the rising. The news spread +quickly that Ket was leading an army to Norwich, and on July 10th, when a +camp was made at Eaton Wood, every hour brought fresh recruits. It is clear +from Ket's speeches, and from "The Rebels' Complaint," issued by him at +this time, that the aim of the leaders of the Norfolk Rising was not merely +to stop the enclosures, but to end the ascendancy of the landlord class for +all time, and to set up a social democracy. + +Ket's address at Eaton Wood was revolutionary: + +"Now are ye overtopped and trodden down by gentlemen, and put out of +possibility ever to recover foot. Rivers of riches run into the coffers of +your landlords, while you are par'd to the quick, and fed upon pease and +oats like beasts. You are fleeced by these landlords for their private +benefit, and as well kept under by the public burdens of State, wherein +while the richer sort favour themselves, ye are gnawn to the very bones. +Your tyrannous masters often implead, arrest, and cast you into prison, so +that they may the more terrify and torture you in your minds, and wind your +necks more surely under their arms.... Harmless counsels are fit for tame +fools; for you who have already stirred, there is no hope but in +adventuring boldly." + +"The Rebels' Complaint" is equally definite and outspoken. It rehearsed the +wrongs of a landless peasantry, and called on the people to end these +wrongs by open rebellion. The note of social equality is struck by Ket +throughout the rising. + +"The present condition of possessing land seemeth miserable and +slavish--holding it all at the pleasure of great men; not freely, but by +prescription, and, as it were, at the will and pleasure of the lord. For as +soon as any man offend any of these gorgeous gentlemen, he is put out, +deprived, and thrust from all his goods. + +"The common pastures left by our predecessors for our relief and our +children are taken away. + +"The lands which in the memory of our fathers were common, those are +ditched and hedged in and made several; the pastures are enclosed, and we +shut out. + +"We can no longer bear so much, so great, and so cruel injury; neither can +we with quiet minds behold so great covetousness, excess, and pride of the +nobility. We will rather take arms, and mix Heaven and earth together, than +endure so great cruelty. + +"Nature hath provided for us, as well as for them; hath given us a body and +a soul, and hath not envied us other things. While we have the same form, +and the same condition of birth together with them, why should they have a +life so unlike unto ours, and differ so far from us in calling? + +"We see that things have now come to extremities, and we will prove the +extremity. We will rend down hedges, fill up ditches, and make a way for +every man into the common pasture. Finally, we will lay all even with the +ground, which they, no less wickedly than cruelly and covetously, have +enclosed. + +"We desire liberty and an indifferent (or equal) use of all things. This +will we have. Otherwise these tumults and our lives shall only be ended +together." + +But though the method was revolution and the goal social democracy, Ket was +no anarchist. He proved himself a strong, capable leader, able to enforce +discipline and maintain law and order in the rebel camp. And with all his +passionate hatred against the rule of the landlord, Ket would allow neither +massacre nor murder. There is no evidence that the life of a single +landowner was taken while the rising lasted, though many were brought +captive to Ket's judgment seat. + +Ket was equally averse from civil war between the citizens of Norwich and +the peasants. When the Mayor of Norwich, Thomas Cod, refused to allow Ket's +army to cross the city on its way to Mousehold Heath, where the permanent +camp was to be made, Ket simply led his forces round by Hailsdon and +Drayton, and so reached Mousehold on July 12th without bloodshed. A week +later, and 20,000 was the number enrolled under the banner of revolt--for +the publication of "The Rebels' Complaint" and the ringing of bells and +firing of beacons roused all the countryside to action. + +On Mousehold Heath, Robert Ket, with his brother William, gave directions +and administered justice under a great tree, called the Oak of Reformation. +Mayor Cod, and two other respected Norwich citizens, Aldrich, an alderman, +and Watson, a preacher, joined Ket's council, thinking their influence +might restrain the rebels from worse doings. + +Twenty-nine "Requests and Demands," signed by Ket, Cod, and Aldrich, were +dispatched to the King from Mousehold, and this document gave in full the +grievances of the rebels. The chief demands were the cessation of +enclosures, the enactment of fair rents, the restoration of common fishing +rights, the appointment of resident clergymen to preach and instruct the +children, and the free election or appointment of local "commissioners" for +the enforcement of the laws. There was also a request "that all bond men +may be made free, for God made all free with His precious bloodshedding." + +The only answer to the "Requests and Demands" was the arrival of a herald +with a promise that Parliament would meet in October to consider the +grievances, if the people would in the meantime quietly return to their +homes. + +But this Ket would by no means agree to, and for the next few weeks his +authority was supreme in that part of the country. He established a rough +constitution for the prevention of mere disorder, two men being chosen by +their fellows from the various hundreds of the eastern half of the county. +A royal messenger, bearing commissions of the peace to certain country +gentlemen, falling into the hands of Ket, was relieved of his documents and +dismissed. Ket then put in these commissions the names of men who had +joined the rising, and declared them magistrates with authority to check +all disobedience to orders. + +To feed the army at Mousehold, men were sent out with a warrant from Ket +for obtaining cattle and corn from the country houses, and "to beware of +robbing, spoiling, and other evil demeanours." No violence or injury was to +be done to "any honest or poor man." Contributions came in from the smaller +yeomen "with much private good-will," but the landowners generally were +stricken with panic, and let the rebels do what they liked. Those who could +not escape by flight were, for the most part, brought captive to the Oak of +Reformation, and thence sent to the prisons in Norwich and St. Leonard's +Hill. + +Relations between Ket and the Norwich authorities soon became strained to +breaking point. Mayor Cod was shocked at the imprisonment of county +gentlemen, and refused permission for Ket's troops to pass through the city +on their foraging expeditions. Citizens and rebels were in conflict on July +21st, but "for lack of powder and want of skill in the gunners" few lives +were lost, and Norwich was in the hands of Ket the following day. No +reprisals followed; but a week later came William Parr, Marquis of +Northampton--Henry VIII.'s brother-in-law--with 1,500 Italian mercenaries +and a body of country squires, to destroy the rebels. Northampton's forces +were routed utterly, and Lord Sheffield was slain, and many houses and +gates were burnt in the city. + +Then for three weeks longer Robert Ket remained in power, still hoping +against hope that some attention would be given by the Government to his +"Requests and Demands." Protector Somerset, beset by his own difficulties, +could do nothing for rebellious peasants, could not countenance in any way +an armed revolt, however great the miseries that provoked insurrection. +The Earl of Warwick was dispatched with 14,000 troops to end the +rebellion, and arrived on August 24th. For two days the issue seemed +uncertain--half the city only was in Warwick's hands. The arrival of 1,400 +mercenaries--"lanzknechts," Germans mostly--and a fatal decision of the +rebels to leave their vantage ground at Mousehold Heath and do battle in +the open valley that stretched towards the city, gave complete victory to +Warwick. + +The peasants poured into the meadows beyond Magdalen and Pockthorpe gates, +and were cut to pieces by the professional soldiers. + +When all seemed over Ket galloped away to the north, but was taken, worn +out, at the village of Swannington, eight miles from Norwich. + +More than 400 peasants were hanged by Warwick's orders, and their bodies +left to swing on Mousehold and in the city. Robert Ket and William Ket were +sent to London, and after being tried and condemned for high treason, were +returned to Norwich in December for execution. Robert Ket was hanged in +chains from Norwich Castle, and William suffered in similar fashion from +the parish church at Wymondham--to remind all people of the fate that +befall those who venture, unsuccessfully, to take up arms against the +government in power. + +So the Norfolk Rising ended, and with it ended all serious popular +insurrection in England. Riots and mob violence have been seen even to our +own time, but no great, well-organised movement to overthrow authority and +establish a social democracy by force of arms has been attempted since +1549. + +The characters of Robert Ket and his brother have been vindicated by time, +and the rebel leader is now recognised as a disinterested, capable, +high-minded man. Ket took what seemed to him the only possible course to +avert the doom of a ruined peasantry, and failed. But his courage and +humaneness are beyond question.[47] + +The enclosures did not end with the sixteenth century, and for another one +hundred years complaints are heard of the steady depopulation of rural +England. In the eighteenth century came the second great series of +enclosures--the enclosing of the commons and waste spaces, by Acts of +Parliament. Between 1710 and 1867 no less than 7,660,439 acres were thus +enclosed. + +To-day the questions of land tenure and land ownership are conspicuous +items in the discussion of the whole social question, for the relations of +a people to its land are of very first importance in a democratic state. + + * * * * * + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE STRUGGLE RENEWED AGAINST THE CROWN + +PARLIAMENT UNDER THE TUDORS + +The English Parliament throughout the sixteenth century was but a servile +instrument of the Crown. The great barons were dead. Henry VIII. put to +death Sir Thomas More and all who questioned the royal absolutism. +Elizabeth, equally despotic, had by good fortune the services of the first +generation of professional statesmen that England produced. These +statesmen--Burleigh, Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Walter Mildmay, Sir Thomas +Smith, and Sir Francis Walsingham--all died in office. Burleigh was +minister for forty years, Bacon and Mildmay for more than twenty, and Smith +and Walsingham for eighteen years.[48] + +[Illustration: SIR JOHN ELIOT] + +Parliament was not only intimidated by Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, its +membership was recruited by nominees of the Crown.[49] And then it is also +to be borne in mind that both Henry and Elizabeth made a point of getting +Parliament to do their will. They governed through Parliament, and ruled +triumphantly, for it is only in the later years of Elizabeth that any +discontent is heard. The Stuarts, far less tyrannical, came to grief just +because they never understood the importance of Parliament in the eyes of +Englishmen in the middle ranks, and attempted to rule while ignoring the +House of Commons. + +Elizabeth scolded her Parliaments, and more than once called the Speaker of +the House of Commons to account. The business of Tudor Parliaments was to +decree the proposals of the Crown. "Liberty of speech was granted in +respect of the aye or no, but not that everybody should speak what he +listed." Bacon declared, "the Queen hath both enlarging and restraining +power; she may set at liberty things restrained by statute and may restrain +things which be at liberty." + +Yet Elizabeth raised no objection to the theory that Parliament was the +sovereign power, for her authority controlled Parliament; and so we have +Sir Thomas Smith writing in 1589 that "the most high and absolute power of +the realm of England consisteth in the Parliament." + +In his "Ecclesiastical Polity," Book I. (1592-3), Hooker argues that "Laws +human, of what kind soever are available by consent," and that "laws they +are not which public approbation hath not made so"; deciding explicitly +that sovereignty rests ultimately in the people. + +VICTORY OF PARLIAMENT OVER THE STUARTS + +When he came to the throne in 1603, James I. was prepared to govern with +all the Tudor absolutism, but he had neither Elizabeth's Ministers--Cecil +excepted--nor her knowledge of the English mind. The English Parliament and +the English people had put up with Elizabeth's headstrong, capricious rule, +because it had been a strong rule, and the nation had obviously thriven +under it.[50] But it was another matter altogether when James I. was king. + +"By many steps the slavish Parliament of Henry VIII. grew into the +murmuring Parliament of Queen Elizabeth, the mutinous Parliament of James +I., and the rebellious Parliament of Charles I." + +The twenty years of James I.'s reign saw the preaching up of the doctrine +of the divine right of kings by the bishops of the Established Church, and +the growing resolution of the Commons to revive their earlier rights and +privileges. If the Stuarts were as unfortunate in their choice of Ministers +as Elizabeth had been successful, the House of Commons was equally happy in +the remarkable men who became its spokesmen and leaders. In the years that +preceded the Civil War--1626-42--three men are conspicuous on the +Parliamentary side: Eliot, Hampden, and Pym. All three were country +gentlemen, of good estate, high principle, and religious +convictions[51]--men of courage and resolution, and of blameless personal +character. Eliot died in prison, in the cause of good government, in 1632; +Hampden fell on Chalgrove Field in 1643. + +As in earlier centuries the struggle in the seventeenth century between the +King and the Commons turned mainly on the questions of taxation. (At the +same time an additional cause of dispute can be found in the religious +differences between Charles I. and the Parliamentarians. The latter were +mainly Puritan, accepting the Protestantism of the Church of England, but +hating Catholicism and the high-church views of Laud. The King was in full +sympathy with high Anglicanism, and, like his father, willing to relax the +penal laws against Catholics.) + +"By the ancient laws and liberties of England it is the known birthright +and inheritance of the subject that no tax, tallage, or other charge shall +be levied or imposed but by common consent in England, and that the +subsidies of tonnage and poundage are no way due or payable but by a free +gift and special Act of Parliament." + +In these memorable words began the declaration moved by Sir John Eliot in +the House of Commons on March 2nd, 1629. A royal message ordering the +adjournment of the House was disregarded, the Speaker was held down in his +chair, and the key of the House of Commons was turned against intrusion, +while Eliot's resolutions, declaring that the privileges of the Commons +must be preserved, were carried with enthusiasm. + +Charles answered these resolutions by dissolving Parliament and sending +Eliot to the Tower. + +For eleven years no Parliament was summoned. Eliot refused altogether to +make any defence for his Parliamentary conduct. "I hold that it is against +the privilege of Parliament to speak of anything which is done in the +House," was his reply to the Crown lawyers. So Sir John Eliot was left in +prison, for nothing would induce this devoted believer in representative +government to yield to the royal pressure, and three years later, at the +age of forty-two, he died in the Tower. + +It was for the liberties of the House of Commons that Eliot gave his life. +Wasted with sickness, health and freedom were his if he would but +acknowledge the right of the Crown to restrain the freedom of Parliamentary +debate; but such an acknowledgment was impossible from Sir John Eliot. For +him the privilege of the House of Commons in the matter of free speech was +a sacred cause, to be upheld by Members of Parliament, even to the death--a +cause every whit as sacred to Eliot as the divine right of kings was to the +Stuart bishops. + +Charles hoped to govern England through his Ministers without interference +from the Commons, and only the need of money compelled him to summon +Parliament. + +John Hampden saw that if the King could raise money by forced loans and +other exactions, the days of constitutional government were over. Hence his +memorable resistance to ship-money. London and the seaports were induced to +provide supplies for ships in 1634, on the pretext that piracy must be +prevented. In the following year the demand was extended to the inland +counties, and Hampden refused point blank to pay--though the amount was +only a matter of 20s.--falling back, in justification of his refusal, on +the Petition of Right--acknowledged by Charles in 1628--which declared that +taxes were not to be levied without the consent of Parliament. The case was +decided in 1636, and five of the twelve judges held that Hampden's +objection was valid. The arguments in favour of non-payment were circulated +far and wide, so that, in spite of the adverse verdict, "the judgment +proved of more advantage and credit to the gentleman condemned than to the +King's service."[52] + +The personal rule of Charles and his Ministers, Laud and Strafford, came to +an end in the autumn of 1640, when there was no choice left to the King but +to summon Parliament, if money was to be obtained. Earlier in the year the +"Short Parliament" had met, only to be dissolved by the folly of the King +after a sitting of three weeks, because of its unwillingness to vote +supplies without the redress of grievances. + +The disasters of the King's campaign against the Scots, an empty treasury, +and a mutinous army, compelled the calling of Parliament. But the temper of +the men who came to the House of Commons in November was vastly different +from the temper of the "Short Parliament."[53] For this was the famous +"Long Parliament" that assembled in the dark autumn days of 1640, and it +was to sit for thirteen years; to see the impeachment and execution of Laud +and Strafford, the trial and execution of the King, the abolition of +monarchy and the House of Lords, the establishment of the Commonwealth; and +was itself to pass away finally only before Cromwell's military +dictatorship. + +Hampden was the great figure at the beginning of this Parliament. "The eyes +of all men were fixed upon him, as their _patriae pater_, and the pilot that +must steer the vessel through the tempests and rocks which threatened it. I +am persuaded (wrote Clarendon) his power and interest at that time were +greater to do good or hurt than any man's in the kingdom, or than any man +of his rank hath had at any time; for his reputation of honesty was +universal, and his affections seemed so publicly guided, that no corrupt or +private ends could bias them." + +Politically, neither Hampden nor Pym was Republican. Both believed in +government by King, Lords, and Commons; but both were determined that the +King's Ministers should be answerable to Parliament for the policy of the +Crown, and that the Commons, who found the money for government, should +have a definite say in the spending of that money. As for the royal claim +of "Divine right," and the royal view that held passive obedience to be the +duty of the King's subjects, and saw in Parliament merely a useful +instrument for the raising of funds to be spent by the royal pleasure +without question or criticism--these things were intolerable to Hampden, +Pym, and the men of the House of Commons. The King would not govern through +Parliament; the House of Commons could govern without a King. It was left +to the Civil War to decide the issue between the Crown and Parliament, and +make the House of Commons supreme. + +Things moved quickly in the first year of the Long Parliament. The Star +Chamber and High Commission Courts were abolished. Strafford was impeached +for high treason, and executed on Tower Hill. Archbishop Laud lay in +prison, to be executed four years later. The Grand Remonstrance of the +House of Commons was presented to Charles in December, 1641. The demands of +the Commons in the Remonstrance were not revolutionary, but they stated, +quite frankly, the case for the Parliament. The main points were the need +for securities for the administration of justice, and an insistence on the +responsibility of the King's Ministers to the Houses of Parliament. The +Grand Remonstrance was only carried by eleven votes in the House of +Commons, 159 to 148, after wild scenes. "Some waved their hats over their +heads, and others took their swords in their scabbards out of their belts, +and held them by the pummels in their hands, setting the lower part on the +ground." Actual violence was only prevented "by the sagacity and great +calmness of Mr. Hampden, by a short speech." + +Charles promised an answer to the deputation of members who waited upon him +with the Grand Remonstrance, and early in the new year came the reply. The +King simply demanded the surrender of five members--Pym, Hampden, Holles, +Strode, and Hazlerig--and their impeachment on the charge of high treason. +All constitutional law was set aside by a charge which proceeded personally +from the King, which deprived the accused of their legal right to a trial +by their peers, and summoned them before a tribunal which had no pretence +to a justification over them. On the refusal of the Commons to surrender +their members, Charles came in person to Westminster with 300 cavaliers to +demand their arrest. But the five members, warned of the King's venture, +were well out of the way, and rested safely within the City of London--for +the citizens were strongly for the Parliament. "It was believed that if the +King had found them there (in the House of Commons), and called in his +guards to have seized them, the members of the House would have endeavoured +the defence of them, which might have proved a very unhappy and sad +business." + +As it was, Charles could only retire "in a more discontented and angry +passion than he came in." The step was utterly ill-advised. Parliament was +in no mood to favour royal encroachments, and the citizens of London were +at hand, with their trained bands, to protect forcibly members of the House +of Commons. + +War was now imminent. "The attempt to seize the five members was +undoubtedly the real cause of the war. From that moment, the loyal +confidence with which most of the popular party were beginning to regard +the King was turned into hatred and suspicion. From that moment, the +Parliament was compelled to surround itself with defensive arms. From that +moment, the city assumed the appearance of a garrison. + +"The transaction was illegal from beginning to end. The impeachment was +illegal. The process was illegal. The service was illegal. If Charles +wished to prosecute the five members for treason, a bill against them +should have been sent to a grand jury. That a commoner cannot be tried for +high treason by the Lords at the suit of the Crown, is part of the very +alphabet of our law. That no man can be arrested by the King in person is +equally clear. This was an established maxim of our jurisprudence even in +the time of Edward the Fourth. 'A subject,' said Chief Justice Markham to +that Prince, 'may arrest for treason; the King cannot; for, if the arrest +be illegal, the party has no remedy against the King.'"[54] + +Both King and Parliament broke rudely through all constitutional precedents +in their preparations for hostilities. + +The King levied troops by a royal commission, without any advice from +Parliament, and Pym got an ordinance passed, in both Houses, appointing the +Lords-Lieutenant of the counties to command the Militia without warrant +from the Crown. + +A last attempt at negotiations was made at York, in April, when the +proposals of Parliament--nineteen propositions for curtailing the power of +the Monarchy in favour of the Commons--were rejected by Charles with the +words: "If I granted your demands, I should be no more than the mere +phantom of a king." + +By August, Charles had raised the royal standard at Nottingham, and war was +begun. + +Five years later and Charles was a prisoner, to die in 1649 on the +scaffold. That same year monarchy and the House of Lords were abolished by +law; the Established Church had already fallen before the triumphant arms +of the Puritans. + +Then, in 1653, the House of Commons itself fell--expelled by Cromwell; and +the task of the Lord Protector was to fashion a constitution that would +work.[55] What happened was the supremacy of the army. Parliament, +attenuated and despised, contended in vain against the Protector. On +Cromwell's death, and the failure of his son, Richard, the army declared +for Charles II., and there was an end to the Commonwealth. + +THE DEMOCRATIC PROTEST--LILBURNE + +In all these changes the great mass of the people had neither part nor lot; +and the famous leaders of the Parliamentary Party, resolute to curtail the +absolutism of the Crown, were no more concerned with the welfare of the +labouring people than the barons were in the time of John. The labouring +people--generally--were equally indifferent to the fortunes of Roundheads +and Cavaliers, though the townsmen in many places held strong enough +opinions on the matters of religion that were in dispute.[56] + +That the common misery of the people was not in any way lightened by +Cromwell's rule we have abundant evidence, and it cannot be supposed that +the substitution of the Presbyterian discipline for episcopacy in the +Church, and the displacement of Presbyterians by Independents, was likely +to alleviate this misery. + +Taxation was heavier than it had ever been before, and in Lancashire, +Westmorland, and Cumberland the distress was appalling. + +Whitelocke, writing in 1649,[57] notes "that many families in Lancashire +were starved." "That many in Cumberland and Westmorland died in the +highways for want of bread, and divers left their habitations, travelling +with their wives and children to other parts to get relief, but could find +none. That the committees and Justices of the Peace of Cumberland signed a +certificate, that there were 30,000 families that had neither seed nor +bread-corn, nor money to buy either, and they desired a collection for +them, which was made, but much too little to relieve so great a multitude." + +Cromwell, occupied with high affairs of State, had neither time nor +inclination to attend to social reform. Democracy had its witnesses; +Lilburne and the Levellers made their protest against military rule, and +were overpowered; Winstanley and his Diggers endeavoured to persuade the +country that the common land should be occupied by dispossessed peasants, +and were quickly suppressed. + +Lilburne was concerned with the establishment of a political democracy, +Winstanley with a social democracy, and in both cases the propaganda was +offensive to the Protector. + +Had Cromwell listened to Lilburne, and made concessions towards democracy, +the reaction against Puritanism and the Commonwealth might have been +averted.[58] + +John Lilburne had been a brave soldier in the army of the Parliament in the +early years of the Civil War, and he left the army in 1645 with the rank of +Lieutenant-Colonel (and with L880 arrears of pay due to him) rather than +take the covenant and subscribe to the requirements of the "new model." + +The monarchy having fallen, Lilburne saw the possibilities of tyranny in +the Parliamentary government, and at once spoke out. With considerable +legal knowledge, a passion for liberty, clear views on democracy, an +enormous capacity for work, and great skill as a pamphleteer, Lilburne was +not to be ignored. The Government might have had him for a supporter; it +unwisely decided to treat him as an enemy, and for ten years he was an +unsparing critic, his popularity increasing with every fresh pamphlet he +issued--and at every fresh imprisonment. + +Lilburne urged a radical reform of Parliament and a general manhood +suffrage in 1647, and the "Case for the Army," published by the Levellers +in the same year, on the proposal of the Presbyterian majority in +Parliament that the army should be disbanded, demanded the abolition of +monopolies, freedom of trade and religion, restoration of enclosed common +lands, and abolition of sinecures. + +Both Cromwell and Ireton were strongly opposed to manhood suffrage, and +Cromwell--to whom the immediate danger was a royalist reaction--had no +patience for men who would embark on democratic experiments at such a +season. + +Lilburne and the Levellers were equally distrustful of Cromwell's new +Council of State. "We were ruled before by King, Lords, and Commons, now by +a General, Court-martial, and Commons; and, we pray you, what is the +difference?" So they put the question in 1648. + +To Cromwell the one safety for the Commonwealth was in the loyalty of the +army to the Government. To Lilburne the one guarantee for good government +was in the supremacy of a Parliament elected by manhood suffrage. He saw +plainly that unless steps were taken to establish democratic institutions +there was no future for the Commonwealth; and he took no part in the trial +of Charles I., saying openly that he doubted the wisdom of abolishing +monarchy before a new constitution had been drawn up. + +But Lilburne overestimated the strength of the Leveller movement in the +army, and the corporals who revolted were shot by sentence of +courts-martial.[59] + +In vain the democratic troopers argued, "the old king's person and the old +lords are but removed, and a new king and new lords with the commons are in +one House, and so we are under a more absolute arbitrary monarchy than +before." The Government answered by clapping Lilburne in the Tower, where, +in spite of a petition signed by 80,000 for his release, he remained for +three months without being brought to trial. Released on bail, Lilburne, +who from prison had issued an "Agreement of the Free People," calling for +annual parliaments elected by manhood suffrage and the free election of +unendowed church ministers in every parish, now published an "Impeachment +for High Treason against Oliver Cromwell and his son-in-law, James Ireton," +and declared that monarchy was preferable to a military despotism. At last, +brought to trial on the charge of "treason," Lilburne was acquitted with "a +loud and unanimous shout" of popular approval.[60] "In a revolution where +others argued about the respective rights of King and Parliament, he spoke +always of the rights of the people. His dauntless courage and his power of +speech made him the idol of the mob."[61] + +Lilburne was again brought to trial, in 1653, and again acquitted, with +undiminished enthusiasm. But "for the peace of the nation," Cromwell +refused to allow the irrepressible agitator to be at large, and for two +years Lilburne, "Free-born John," was kept in prison. During those years +all power in the House of Commons was broken by the rule of the Army of the +Commonwealth, and Parliament stood in abject submission before the Lord +Protector. Only when his health was shattered, and he had embraced Quaker +principles, was Lilburne released, and granted a pension of 40s. a week. +The following year, at the age of 40, Lilburne died of consumption--brought +on by the close confinement he had suffered. A year later, 1658, and +Cromwell, by whose side Lilburne had fought at Marston Moor, and against +whose rule he had contended for so many a year, was dead, and the +Commonwealth Government was doomed. + +WINSTANLEY AND "THE DIGGERS" + +The "Digger" movement was a shorter and much more obscure protest on behalf +of the people than Lilburne's agitation for democracy; but it is notable +for its social significance. + +While Lilburne strove vigorously for political reforms that are still +unaccomplished, Gerrard Winstanley preached a revolutionary gospel of +social reform--as John Ball and Robert Ket had before him. But Winstanley's +social doctrine allowed no room for violence, and included the +non-resistance principles that found exposition in the Society of Friends. +Hence the "Diggers," preaching agrarian revolution; but denying all right +to force of arms, never endangered the Commonwealth Government as Lilburne +and the Levellers did. + +Free Communism was the creed of more than one Protestant sect in the +sixteenth century, and the Anabaptists on the Continent had been +conspicuous for their experiments in community of goods and anarchist +society. + +Winstanley confined his teaching and practice to common ownership of land, +pleading for the cultivation of the enclosed common lands, "that all may +feed upon the crops of the earth, and the burden of poverty be removed." +There was to be no forcible expropriation of landlords. + +"If the rich still hold fast to this propriety of Mine and Thine, let them +labour their own lands with their own hands. And let the common people, +that say the earth is _ours_, not _mine_, let them labour together, and eat +bread together upon the commons, mountains, and hills. + +"For as the enclosures are called such a man's land, and such a man's land, +so the Commons and Heath are called the common people's. And let the world +see who labour the earth in righteousness, and those to whom the Lord gives +the blessing, let them be the people that shall inherit the earth. + +"None can say that their right is taken from them. For let the rich work +alone by themselves; and let the poor work together by themselves."[62] + +With the common ownership and cultivation of land, an end was to be made of +all tyranny of man over his fellows. + +[Illustration: JOHN HAMPDEN + +_After the Engraving by G. Houbraken._] + +"Leave off dominion and lordship one over another; for the whole bulk of +mankind are but one living earth. Leave off imprisoning, whipping, and +killing, which are but the actings of the curse. Let those that have +hitherto had no land, and have been forced to rob and steal through +poverty; henceforth let them quietly enjoy land to work upon, that everyone +may enjoy the benefit of his creation, and eat his own bread with the sweat +of his own brow." + +Winstanley's argument was quite simple: + +"If any man can say that he makes corn or cattle, he may say, _That is +mine_. But if the Lord made these for the use of His creation, surely then +the earth was made by the Lord to be a Common Treasury for all, not a +particular treasury for some." + +Two objections were urged against private property in land: + +"First, it hath occasioned people to steal from one another. Secondly, it +hath made laws to hang those that did steal. It tempts people to do an evil +action, and then kills them for doing it." It was a prolific age for +pamphlets, the seventeenth century; the land teemed with preachers and +visionaries, and Winstanley's writings never attracted the sympathy that +was given to the fierce controversialists on theological and political +questions. + +Only when Winstanley and his Diggers set to work with spade and shovel on +the barren soil of St. George's Hill, in Surrey, in the spring of 1649, was +the attention of the Council of State called to the strange proceedings. +The matter was left to the local magistrates and landowners, and the +Diggers were suppressed. A similar attempt to reclaim land near +Wellingboro' was stopped at once as "seditious and tumultuous." It was +quite useless for Winstanley to maintain that the English people were +dispossessed of their lands by the Crown at the Norman Conquest, and that +with the execution of the King the ownership of the Crown lands ought to +revert to the people; Cromwell and the Council of State had no more +patience with prophets of land nationalisation than with agitators of +manhood suffrage. Indeed, the Commonwealth Government never took the +trouble to distinguish between the different groups of disaffected people, +but set them all down as "Levellers," to be punished as disturbers of the +peace if they refused to obey authority. + +Winstanley's last pamphlet was "True Magistracy Restored," an open letter +to Oliver Cromwell, 1652, and after its publication Gerrard Winstanley and +his Diggers are heard of no more. + +To-day both Lilburne and Winstanley are to be recalled because the +agitation for political democracy is always with us, and the question of +land tenure is seen to be of profound importance in the discussion of +social reform. No democratic statesman in our time can propose an +improvement in the social condition of the people without reference to the +land question, and no social reformer of the nineteenth century has had +more influence or been more widely read and discussed than Henry +George--the exponent of the Single Tax on Land Values. + +Winstanley was very little heeded in his own day, but two hundred and fifty +years later the civilised countries of the earth are found in deep debate +over the respective rights of landowners and landless, and the relation of +poverty to land ownership. State ownership, taxation of land values, +peasant proprietorship, co-operative agriculture--all have their advocates +to-day, but to Winstanley's question whether the earth was made "for to +give ease to a few or health to all," only one answer is returned. + +THE RESTORATION + +Under the Commonwealth the landowners were as powerful as they had been +under the monarchy. Enclosures continued. Social reform was not +contemplated by Cromwell nor by Councils of State; democracy was equally +outside the political vision of government. Church of England ministers +were dispossessed in favour of Nonconformists, Puritanism became the +established faith, Catholicism remained proscribed. + +The interest in ecclesiastical and theological disputes was considerable, +and Puritanism was popular with large numbers of the middle-class. But to +the mass of the people Puritanism was merely the suppression of further +liberties, the prohibition of old customs, the stern abolition of Christmas +revels and May-day games. + +Lilburne did his best to get Cromwell to allow the people some +responsibility in the choice of its rulers. Winstanley proposed a remedy +for the social distress. To neither of these men was any concession made, +and no consideration was given to their appeals. + +Hence the bulk of the nation, ignored by the Commonwealth Government, and +alienated by Puritanism, accepted quite amiably--indeed, with +enthusiasm--the restoration of the monarchy on the return of Charles II., +and was unmoved by the royalist reaction against Parliamentary Government +that followed on the Restoration. + +The House of Commons itself, when Monk and his army had gone over to the +side of Charles, voted, in the Convention Parliament of 1660, "that +according to the ancient and fundamental laws of this Kingdom, the +government is, and ought to be, by King, Lords, and Commons," and Charles +II. was received in London with uproarious enthusiasm. + +The army was disbanded; a royalist House of Commons restored the Church of +England and ordered general acceptance of its Prayer Book. Puritanism, +driven from rule, could only remain in power in the heart and conscience of +its adherents. + +To the old Commonwealth man it might seem, in the reaction against +Puritanism, and in the popularity of the King, that all that had been +striven for in the civil war had been lost, in the same way as after the +death of Simon of Montfort it might have appeared that "the good cause" had +perished with its great leader. In reality the House of Commons stood on +stronger ground than ever, and was to show its strength when James II. +attempted to override its decisions. In the main the very forms of +Parliamentary procedure were settled in the seventeenth century, to remain +undisturbed till the nineteenth century. "The Parliamentary procedure of +1844 was essentially the procedure on which the House of Commons conducted +its business during the Long Parliament."[63] + +With Charles II. on the throne the absolutism of the Crown over Parliament +passed for ever from England. Cromwell had set up the supremacy of the army +over the Commons: this, too, was gone, never to be restored. + +Henceforth government was to be by King, Lords, and Commons; but +sovereignty was to reside in Parliament. Not till a century later would +democracy again be heard of, and its merits urged, as Lilburne had urged +them under the Commonwealth. + + * * * * * + + +CHAPTER V + +CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT--ARISTOCRACY TRIUMPHANT + +GOVERNMENT BY ARISTOCRACY + +For nearly two centuries--from 1660 to 1830--England was governed by an +aristocracy of landowners. Charles II. kept the throne for twenty-five +years, because he had wit enough to avoid an open collision with +Parliament. James II. fled the country after three years--understanding no +more than his father had understood that tyranny was not possible save by +consent of Parliament or by military prowess. At the Restoration the royal +prerogative was dead, and nothing in Charles II.'s reign tended to diminish +the power of Parliament in favour of the throne. Charles was an astute +monarch who did not wish to be sent on his travels again, and consequently +took care not to outrage the nation by any attempt upon the liberties of +Parliament. Only by the Tudor method of using Parliament as the instrument +of the royal will could James II. have accomplished the constitutional +changes he had set his heart upon. In attempting to set up toleration for +the Roman Catholic religion, and in openly appointing Roman Catholics to +positions of importance, James II. set Parliament at defiance and ranged +the forces of the Established Church against himself. The method was doomed +to failure. "None have gone about to break Parliaments but in the end +Parliaments have broken them."[64] In any case the notion of restoring +political liberty to Catholics was a bold endeavour in 1685. Against the +will of Parliament the project was folly. To overthrow the rights of +corporations and of the Universities, and to attempt to bully the Church of +England, after Elizabeth's fashion, at the very beginning of a pro-Catholic +movement, was to provoke defeat. + +Parliament decided that James II. had "abdicated," when, deserted by +Churchill, he fled to France, and William and Mary came to the throne at +the express invitation of Parliament. The Revolution completed the work of +the Long Parliament by defining the limits of monarchy, and establishing +constitutional government. It was not--this Revolution, of 1688--the first +time Parliament had sanctioned the deposing of the King of England and the +appointment of his successor,[65] but it was the last. Never again since +the accession of William and Mary have the relations of the Crown and +Parliament been strained to breaking point; never has the supremacy of +Parliament been seriously threatened by the power of the throne. + +The full effects of the Revolution of 1688 were seen in the course of the +next fifty years. Aristocracy, then mainly Whig, was triumphant, and under +its rule, while large measures of civil and religious liberty were passed, +the condition of the mass of labouring people was generally wretched in the +extreme. The rule of the aristocracy saw England become a great power among +the nations of the world, and the British Navy supreme over the navies of +Europe; but it saw also an industrial population, untaught and uncared for, +sink deeper and deeper into savagery and misery. For a time in the +eighteenth century the farmer and the peasant were prosperous, but by the +close of that century the small farmer was a ruined man, and with the +labourer was carried by the industrial revolution into the town. The worst +times for the English labourer in town and country since the Norman +Conquest were the reign of Edward VI. and the first quarter of the +nineteenth century. + +The development of our political institutions into their present form; the +establishment of our Party system of government by Cabinet, and of the +authority of the Prime Minister; the growth of the supreme power of the +Commons, not only over the throne but over the Lords also: these were the +work of the aristocracy of the eighteenth century, and were attained by +steps so gradual as to be almost imperceptible. No idea of democracy guided +the process; yet our modern democratic system is firm-rooted upon the +principles and privileges of the Constitution as thus established. Social +misery deepened, without check from the politicians; and the most +enlightened statesmen of the Whig regime were very far from our present +conceptions of the duties and possibilities of Parliament. + +CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY + +James II. was tumbled from the throne for his vain attempt to establish +toleration for Catholics and Nonconformists without consent of Parliament. +Yet the Whig aristocracy which followed, while it did nothing for +Catholics, laid broad principles of civil and religious liberty for +democracy to build upon.[66] + +The Declaration of Right, presented by Parliament to William and Mary on +their arrival in London, was turned into the Bill of Rights, and passed +into law in 1689. It stands as the last of the great charters of political +liberty, and states clearly both what is not permitted to the Crown, and +what privileges are allowed to the people. + +Under the Bill of Rights the King was denied the power of suspending or +dispensing, of levying money, or maintaining a standing army without +consent of Parliament. The people were assured of the right of the subject +to petition the Crown, and of the free election of representatives in +Parliament, and of full and free debate in Parliament. Any profession of +the Catholic religion, or marriage with a Catholic, disqualified from +inheritance to or possession of the throne. + +So there was an end to the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings, and four +hundred non-juring clergymen--including half-a-dozen bishops--of the Church +of England were deprived of their ecclesiastical appointments for refusing +to accept the accomplished fact, and acknowledge William III. as the lawful +King of England. By making William King, to the exclusion of the children +of James II., Parliament destroyed for all future time in England the +belief in the sacred character of kingship. The King was henceforth a part +of the constitution, and came to the throne by authority of Parliament, on +conditions laid down by Parliament. + +William resented the decision of Parliament not to allow the Crown a +revenue for life, but to vote an annual supply; but the decision was +adhered to, and has remained in force ever since. The Mutiny Act, passed +the same year, placed the army under the control of Parliament, and the +annual vote for military expenses has, in like manner, remained. + +The Toleration Act (1689) gave Nonconformists a legal right to worship in +their own chapels, but expressly excluded Unitarians and Roman Catholics +from this liberty. Life was made still harder for Roman Catholics in +England by the Act of 1700, which forbade a Catholic priest, under penalty +of imprisonment for life, to say mass, hear confessions, or exercise any +clerical function, and denied the right of the Catholic laity to hold, buy +or inherit property, or to have their children educated abroad. The +objection to Roman Catholics was that their loyalty to the Pope was an +allegiance to a "foreign" ruler which prevented their being good citizens +at home. Against this prejudice it was useless to point to what had been +done by Englishmen for their country, when all the land was Catholic, and +all accepted the supremacy of the Pope. It was not till 1778 that the first +Catholic Relief Bill was carried, a Bill that "shook the general prejudice +against Catholics to the centre, and restored to them a thousand +indescribable charities in the ordinary intercourse of social life which +they had seldom experienced." + +The last Roman Catholic to die for conscience' sake was Oliver Plunket, +Archbishop of Armagh, who was executed at Tyburn, when Charles II. was +King, in 1681. After the Revolution, Nonconformists and Catholics were no +longer hanged or tortured for declining the ministrations of the +Established Church, but still were penalised in many lesser ways. But the +spirit of the eighteenth century made for toleration, and the Whigs were as +unostentatious in their own piety as they were indifferent to the piety of +others. + +The killing of "witches," however, went on in Scotland and in England long +after toleration had been secured for Nonconformists. As late as 1712 a +woman was executed for witchcraft in England.[67] + +GROWTH OF CABINET RULE + +William III. began with a mixed ministry of Whigs and Tories, which +included men like Danby and Godolphin, who had served under James II. But +the fierce wrangling that went on over the war then being waged on the +Continent was decidedly inconvenient, and by 1696 the Whigs had succeeded +in driving all the Tories--who were against the war--out of office. Then +for the first time a united ministry was in power, and from a Cabinet of +men with common political opinions the next step was to secure that the +Cabinet should represent the party with a majority in the House of Commons. +Our present system of Cabinet rule, dependent on the will of the majority +of the Commons, is found in full operation by the middle of the eighteenth +century. The fact that William III., George I., and George II. were all +foreigners necessitated the King's ministers using considerable powers. But +George III. was English, and effected a revival in the personal power of +the King by his determination that the choice of ministers should rest with +the Crown, and not with the House of Commons. He succeeded in breaking up +the long Whig ascendancy, and so accustomed became the people to the King +making and unmaking ministries, that on George IV.'s accession in 1820 it +was fully expected the new King would turn out the Tories and put in Whigs. +William IV. in 1835 did what no sovereign has done since--dissolved +Parliament against the wish of the government. + +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. + +[Illustration: THE GORDON RIOTS + +_From the Painting by Seymour Lucas, R.A._] + +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. + +While Liberals urge "one man, one vote" as the more democratic arrangement, +Conservatives reply by asking for "one vote, one value"--that is, a new +redistribution of seats, for in the last twenty-five years there have been +deep and extensive changes in the distribution of populations, and Ireland +in particular is over-represented, it is maintained. But then the +representation of Ireland in the House of Commons was really guaranteed by +the Act of Union, 1800.[85] + +WORKING-CLASS REPRESENTATION IN PARLIAMENT + +With the extension of the franchise the change in the _personnel_ of the +House of Commons has become marked. The more wealthy of the middle class +entered in considerable numbers after 1832; the Acts of 1867 and 1884 made +the entry of the workman inevitable. The miners were the first to send +Labour representatives to Parliament, and to-day their members outnumber +those of any other trade. Since 1892 industrial constituencies, chiefly in +Yorkshire, Lancashire, South Wales, and the mining districts, have gone on +steadily electing and re-electing working-class representatives--trade +union secretaries and officers for the most part--and with the formation of +a National Labour Representation Committee in 1900, these representatives +became a separate and distinct party--the Labour Party after 1906--in the +House of Commons. + +Enfranchisement to secure representation for the redress of grievances has +been the principle that has guided the English people towards democracy. +Both the middle class and the working class were convinced that +enfranchisement was necessary if the House of Commons was to be in any real +sense a representative assembly, and both have used enfranchisement for +obtaining representation in Parliament. The return of forty Labour Members +at recent general elections is evidence that a large electorate supports +the Labour Party in its desire to carry in Parliament legislation that will +make life a better thing for the labourer and his family; and in the House +of Commons the Labour Members have won a general respect. As a matter of +fact, the House of Commons to-day is in every way a more orderly, a more +intelligent, more business-like, and better-mannered assembly than it was +in the days before 1832. + +No stronger evidence of the value of Parliamentary representation to the +working-class can be offered than the large output of what may be called +labour legislation in recent years. It is true that Lord Shaftesbury's +benevolent and entirely disinterested activities promoted Factory Acts in +the first half of the nineteenth century, but in the last twenty years +measures for the amelioration of the lot of the workman have been +constantly before Parliament. + +REMOVAL OF RELIGIOUS DISABILITIES--CATHOLICS, JEWS, AND FREETHINKERS + +The nineteenth century was not only the century of popular enfranchisement; +it was the century that saw the removal of religious disabilities, and the +free admission to Parliament and to the Government of Roman Catholics, +Nonconformists, Jews, and Freethinkers. + +In the year 1800 Roman Catholics in England were excluded from Parliament, +from the franchise, from the magistracy, the Bar, the Civil Service, from +municipal corporations, and from commissions in the Army and Navy. Pitt was +willing to abolish these disabilities on the passing of the Act of Union, +and the Irish people were bitterly disappointed that the disabilities +remained. But George III. refused all assent to the proposals, and Pitt +resigned. Several times the House of Commons passed Catholic Relief Bills, +which were thrown out by the Lords, and it was not till 1829, when "the +English ministry had to choose between concession and civil war," that Peel +and the Duke of Wellington yielded and persuaded their party to admit +Catholics to Parliament and to the Civil and Military Services. + +The repeal of the Penal Laws against Roman Catholics--Acts of Elizabeth +that inflicted penalties on priests who said mass in England, and on Roman +Catholics who attended mass--took place in 1844, and in 1866 the +Parliamentary Oath was amended and made unobjectionable to Roman Catholics. + +A Roman Catholic is still excluded by law from the Crown, the Lord +Chancellorship, and the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, but many Roman +Catholics are members of Parliament--members of all parties--and the late +Lord Ripon, a Catholic, sat in a Liberal Cabinet. + +In 1846 Rothschild was elected as a Liberal M.P. for the City of London, +but the law did not permit him to take his seat. Then for some years Jewish +M.P.'s were allowed to take part in debates and sit on committees, but were +not allowed to vote. Finally, in 1858, the Lords, after rejecting the +measure for ten years, passed the Jews' Disabilities Bill, which removed +all restriction. The Right Hon. Herbert Samuel, M.P., is the first Jew to +sit in the Cabinet, for though Disraeli was of the Jewish race, he was a +Christian in belief. + +Although in 1800 various Acts on the Statute Book required Nonconformists +to subscribe to the religion of the Church of England before taking part in +municipal affairs, these Acts had long been a dead letter. All that was +done in the nineteenth century was to repeal these Acts, and to throw open +the universities and public offices to Nonconformists. It is only, however, +in recent years that Nonconformists have filled posts of high importance in +the Cabinet. + +The last attempt at restriction on the religious beliefs of members of +Parliament was made in the House of Commons itself, when Charles Bradlaugh, +after being duly elected M.P. for Northampton, was by the action of the +House excluded from his seat. Bradlaugh was a frank disbeliever in +Christianity, and the House of Commons refused to allow him either to take +the oath or make an affirmation. For five years (1880-5) the struggle +lasted--a Liberal Government being in power all the time--and three times +during that period the electors of Northampton triumphantly returned +Charles Bradlaugh as their member, only to be answered by resolutions of +refusal and expulsion passed by the House of Commons against their +representative. It was a repetition of the battle Wilkes had fought one +hundred and twenty years earlier, and it ended in the same way. A new +Parliament assembled in January, 1886 (after a general election in +November), the new Speaker (Mr. Peel) permitted Bradlaugh to take the oath +in the usual way, declined to allow any interference, and the battle was +over. Two years later a general Affirmation Bill was carried on the motion +of Bradlaugh, and became law. When Charles Bradlaugh lay dying in January, +1891, the House of Commons passed, without dissent, a resolution expunging +from the journals of the House the old resolutions of exclusion. + +THE ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN + +The nineteenth century then will always be noted as the era of steady +advance towards democracy, especially in England. Enfranchisement of the +workman, and his representation in Parliament, have transferred the +government of the country from an aristocracy to the middle class and the +working class, for to-day, alike in Parliament and in the permanent Civil +Service, men of the middle class predominate, assisted by those who served +apprenticeship in mine or workshop. The removal of religious disabilities +has ended the old rule that confined the business of the legislature and +the administration of justice to members of the Established Church of +England, and Roman Catholics, Jews, Nonconformists, and Freethinkers now +take their share in all public work. + +One disability only remains--the sex disability that denies the +parliamentary franchise to women. In the middle ages women were excused +from parliamentary attendance, but there was no notion that their powers +and privileges as landowners were shortened because, on account of their +sex, they were granted exemption from Parliament and from juries. In 1868 a +test case--Chorlton _v._ Lings--was brought, and the judges decided that +women householders were not to be registered as electors, and it was left +to Parliament to pass a Women's Enfranchisement Bill. From the time of John +Stuart Mill's advocacy in 1867 there have always been supporters of Women's +Suffrage in the House of Commons, and in the last five years these +supporters have been growing in numbers. Only the refusal of the Government +to give time for the discussion of the Bill in Committee has prevented a +Woman's Enfranchisement measure, which on several occasions has received a +second reading, from passing the House of Commons; and the announcement by +the present (1911) Government that full facilities for such discussion are +to be granted next year (1912) would indicate that the removal of political +sex disabilities is close at hand. Women are not asking for adult suffrage, +but are willing to receive enfranchisement on the terms that qualify men as +electors, and the Conciliation Bill, as it is called--because members of +every political party have agreed to make it their Bill--would place on the +roll of electors rather more than a million of women voters. + +Meantime, while waiting for the removal of the anti-democratic barrier that +excludes them from full political citizenship, women are admitted in the +United Kingdom to an equal share with men in all local government. Since +1869 women who are householders have enjoyed the municipal franchise, and +as Poor Law guardians and members of school boards, they have been freely +elected to sit side by side with men. In 1907 women were declared eligible +by Parliament for membership on county and borough councils, and for the +chairmanship of county councils and the mayoralty of boroughs. Since this +Act was passed we have seen women elected to the councils of great +cities--Manchester and Liverpool, for instance--and chosen as mayors in +several towns. No political movement in recent years has been of greater +public interest or importance than the agitation for "Votes for Women." The +demand for enfranchisement is based on the old constitutional ground of the +Parliamentarians of the seventeenth century--that those who are directly +taxed by Government must have some political control of the public +expenditure--and it is supported by the present leader of the Conservative +Party[86] on the ground that government can only be carried on in England +by consent of the governed. + +The demand for the parliamentary franchise is with us the expression of +that deep dissatisfaction at the unequal relations of the sexes that is +felt by many men, and by far more women, all over the civilised world. As +the middle-class man and the workmen of Great Britain were sure that they +could not get from Parliament an understanding of popular grievances, still +less fair treatment, until they possessed the right to choose their own +parliamentary representatives, so women are convinced that there can be no +adequate adjustment of these unequal relations until they too enjoy the +same privilege of citizenship; for enfranchisement and representation are +the two chosen instruments of democratic government in our day. + + * * * * * + + +CHAPTER VIII + +DEMOCRACY AT WORK + +LOCAL GOVERNMENT + +To-day in Great Britain, in America, in the self-governing colonies, and in +many European countries, we can sec the principles of democracy in working +order. + +The whole system of local government in Great Britain and Ireland is +essentially democratic. The municipal councils of all the large cities are +elected on household suffrage, and have enormous powers. There is now no +sex disability to prevent the election of women to these bodies, and, +except in the case of the clergy of the Established Church, who are +disqualified from sitting on town councils (but not on county or district +councils), all ratepayers are eligible for nomination. The result is that +on nearly every city council, and on a great number of county councils, +London borough councils, urban and rural district councils, boards of +guardians, and parish councils, there are working-class representatives, +while women members have been elected to the great councils of Liverpool +and Manchester, and sit on many boards of guardians and parish councils. + +All these councils are of recent creation. The Municipal Corporations Act +of 1835 placed the election of town councils for the first time in the +hands of the ratepayers, but the real reform of local government dates from +1888. In that year the Conservative Government established county and +district councils and Lord Rosebery became the first chairman of the London +County Council. Six years later the Liberals set up parish councils in the +rural districts, with parish meetings where the population did not exceed +three hundred. In 1899 the Conservatives displaced the old London vestries +by borough councils, and in 1902-3 abolished in England the school boards +created in 1870, and made the county council the local authority for public +elementary education. Scotland was allowed to retain its school boards, and +strong but unsuccessful opposition was made in London and the chief cities +to the suppression of the specially elected education authority. + +[Illustration: THE RIGHT HON. JOHN BURNS, M.P. + +_Photo: Moyse, Putney._] + +As far as rural England is concerned, county councils, district councils, +and parish councils are, generally speaking, very reluctant to put into +operation the wide powers they possess. The average county council, though +popularly elected, is composed in agricultural England of landowners and +the bigger farmers, who, as a common rule, do not favour a land programme +for labourers, and are anxious to keep down the rates. The rural district +council and board of guardians are equally averse from any display of +public enterprise, and the parish council, which often consists mainly of +labourers, rarely accomplishes anything except at the prompting, or with +the sanction, of the parochial landowner. The result is that allotments, +rural housing, village baths and washhouses, an adequate water supply, +public halls and libraries, are not regarded as the concern of rural +elected authorities, but are left to the private enterprise of landowners. +Civic pride, which glories in the public proprietorship of lands and +libraries, tramways and lodging-houses, waterworks and workmen's dwellings, +art galleries and swimming baths, and is a living influence in the +municipalities of, let us say, London, Glasgow, Liverpool, Leeds, Bradford, +Manchester, Birmingham, West Ham, and many a smaller borough, does not +exist in rural councils. To the farmer and the peasant public ownership is +a new and alien thing. The common lands and all the old village communal +life have gone out of the memory of rural England; but the feudal tradition +that the landowner is the real centre of authority has survived, and it is +the benevolent landowner who is expected to build cottages, grant +allotments, and see to the water supply, as fifty years ago he built and +managed the village school. Political organisation could break through this +tradition, but farmers and agricultural labourers are without this +organisation; and so the authority of the landowner remains, in spite of +the democratic constitution of local government. The people can allow their +power to remain in the hands of others, just as a king can be content to +reign without ruling, and the local government of rural England is an +oligarchy elected by a popular franchise. + +In the factory towns and the mining districts it is a very different +matter. Here the people are organised, and take their share in local +government. In the county of Durham, for instance, the working class +predominates on local councils, and the influence of trade unions prevails +in these assemblies wherever a strong Labour party exists. Mr. Joseph +Chamberlain began his public career on the Birmingham Town Council, and his +municipal services earned for him the enthusiastic support of Birmingham +for all his later political ventures. It would be difficult to mention the +name of a great statesman who laid the foundations of his fame in rural +local government. + +As in local government, so in the Imperial Parliament. Rural England sends +no Labour member to the House of Commons. Only in very exceptional cases +has a tenant farmer been elected. It is the social labour of the mine and +the mill that has produced the Labour member of Parliament. + +Mr. Joseph Arch made a valiant attempt to organise the agricultural +labourers of England, and from 1880 to 1890 a rural labourers' union, with +some thousands of members, was in existence. For a time this secured a rise +in wages, and when Mr. Arch was in Parliament, as a Liberal M.P. +(1885-1895), the rural labourer hoped for lasting improvement in the +conditions of life. But the Union fell to pieces, and Mr. Arch was not +strong enough single-handed to force the claims of his constituents on the +House of Commons. + +THE WORKMAN IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS + +To-day there are more than forty workmen in the House of Commons, and the +great majority of these have served an apprenticeship in municipal and +trade union offices. Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Lancashire, +Stafford, South Wales, Glasgow, Dundee, Leicester, Norwich and London, all +have their elected Labour members in Parliament, and a marked preference is +shown for the man who has proved his honesty and capacity in the +municipality, or as the leader of his trade union. All the miners' +representatives are tried and experienced men. Mr. G.N. Barnes, M.P., was +for ten years the general secretary of the Amalgamated Society of +Engineers. Mr. Clynes, M.P., was elected to the office of district +secretary of the Gas Workers' and General Labourers' Union twenty years +ago; Mr. Will Thorne, M.P., has been general secretary of the same union +since 1889, and has sat on the West Ham Corporation for more than sixteen +years. Mr. George Lansbury, M.P., and Mr. Will Crooks, M.P., are well known +for their work on the London County Council and on their local borough +council and board of guardians. Similarly with other Labour members of +Parliament. Their lives are marked by a sense of public responsibility, +with the result that in the House of Commons they are grave, business-like, +and undemonstrative. The Labour members do not make "scenes"; they respect +the rules of the House and the dignity of the National Assembly, partly +because they are all in sober middle age, but more because they have learnt +that public business can only be carried on by due observance of order; and +they are in Parliament to get business done for their constituents, to +promote legislation that will make life easier for the working class. When +Mr. Victor Grayson, in the exuberance of youth, and with a passion that +blazed out against the misery of the poor, made a "scene" in the House of +Commons, and was expelled, the Labour members were quite sincere in their +disapproval. They understood, with a wider knowledge than Mr. Grayson +possessed, that "scenes" alienated sympathy in the House, were not helpful +in debate, and were not popular with the electors. + +The member who would succeed in the House of Commons must respect the +usages of the House, and show himself loyal to its laws of debate. As long +as this respect and loyalty are shown the Labour member is accepted by his +fellow-members as one who has been elected to the greatest club in the +world, and is justly entitled to all the privileges of membership. For the +British House of Commons is a democratic assembly, and in its collective +pride it cares nothing for the opinions or social rank of its members. All +it asks is that the newly-elected member should be alive to the honour of +membership, should be modest in his bearing, and should as soon as possible +"catch the tone of the House." He may be a labourer, or the son of a belted +earl; the House is indifferent so long as his parliamentary manners are +good. + +The House of Commons is a far more orderly assembly than it was a hundred +years ago; it is more sober and less noisy, and the arrival of Labour +members has increased rather than diminished its good behaviour. It is also +a far more industrious assembly, and the influence of the Labour party +compels an amount of legislation that honourable members would have thought +impossible fifty years ago. + +WORKING-CLASS LEADERS IN PARLIAMENT + +Three representative working-class leaders in the House of Commons stand +out pre-eminently in contemporary politics--the Right Hon. John Burns, Mr. +J. Keir Hardie, and Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald. The Right Hon. D. Lloyd George +is conspicuous rather as the representative of the industrious +Nonconformist middle class, but the success of his career is no less +significant of the advance of democracy. The very Cabinet is now no longer +an aristocratic committee, and the highest offices of executive government +are held by men who are neither wealthy nor of distinguished family. + +Two working-class leaders of an earlier generation--the Right Hon. T. Burt, +M.P., and Mr. H. Broadhurst--held office as Under-Secretaries in the +Liberal Government of 1892-5; but Mr. John Burns is the first trade +unionist to sit in the Cabinet. He, too, might have been an Under-Secretary +in the days of that short-lived Ministry, but decided, with characteristic +vigour, that if he was fit to be an Under-Secretary he was fit for the +Cabinet. At the close of 1905 the opportunity came, and the offer of Sir H. +Campbell-Bannerman to preside over the Local Government Board was promptly +accepted. The workman first took his place in the Cabinet when Mr. John +Burns, at the age of forty-seven, went to the Local Government Board--to +the complete satisfaction of Mr. Burns. For the robust egoism of Mr. Burns +is largely a class pride. His invincible belief in himself is part of an +equally invincible belief in the working class. His ambitions thrive on the +conviction that whatever Mr. John Burns does, that the working class does +in the person of their representative. Always does he identify himself with +the mechanics and labourers with whom his earlier years were spent, and by +whose support he has risen to office. The more honours for Mr. John Burns, +the more does it seem to this stalwart optimist that the working class is +honoured. He arrays himself in court dress at the palaces of kings, +receives honorary degrees at Universities, and is kept before the public by +the newspaper paragraphist, without wincing or pretending to dislike it. +Why should the workman not be esteemed by kings and universities? Mr. Burns +asks. So great is his self-respect that the respect of others is taken as a +matter of course. Much of the criticism that has been directed against Mr. +John Burns misses the mark, because it does not recognise that the motive +power at work all the time in his career is the triumph of his class. It is +the triumph of a member of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, of a +London workman, that Mr. John Burns beholds with unconcealed pleasure in +his own success. + +There are drawbacks, of course, to this complete self-satisfaction. Since +the workman has triumphed in the person of Mr. John Burns, the working +class would do well to follow his example, and heed his advice on all +matters affecting its welfare, Mr. Burns argues. The failures of +working-class life and the misery of the poor are due to the lack of those +virtues that he possesses, he is apt to maintain. Hence Mr. Burns is hated +as a Pharisee in certain quarters when he extols self-reliance and total +abstinence as essential to working-class prosperity, and points to gambling +and strong drink as the root of all evil in the State. It is sometimes +urged that Mr. Burns over-praises his own merits; but the fault is really +in the opposite direction; he does not appreciate sufficiently that the +gifts he possesses--the gifts he has used so fully and so freely--are +exceptional. These gifts are a powerful physique, a great voice, a +tremendous energy, and a love of literature; and they are not the common +equipment of the skilled mechanic and the labourer. True, they are often +wasted and destroyed when they do exist; and in the case of Mr. Burns a +strongly disciplined will has made them abundantly fruitful. But from the +first the physique, the voice, and the untiring energy were far above those +that fall to the lot of the average workman; and the love of books stored +the mind with rich supplies of language to be drawn upon when speeches were +to be made. Not as an administrator at the Local Government Board has Mr. +Burns become famous. His fame as a champion of the working class was +established by popular ovations in Hyde Park and at dock gates. Battersea +has been won and held by the speeches of its member. It is not the mighty +voice alone, silencing interruption often enough by sheer volume of sound, +but the plainly pointed epigram, the ready jest and the quick repartee that +endear Mr. John Burns' speeches to the multitude. His sayings and phrases +are quoted. His wit is the wit of the Londoner--the wit that Dickens knew +and studied, the wit of the older cabmen and 'bus drivers, the wit of the +street boy. It is racy, it is understood, and the illustrations are always +concrete and massive, never vague or unsubstantial. Apt Shakespearian +quotations, familiar and unfamiliar, embellish the speeches. Personality, +vital personality, counts for so much in the orator of the market place. +The speaker must be alive to his audience, he must convince by his presence +no less than by his arguments. And Mr. Burns is so obviously alive. He +warms the shrunken, anaemic vitality of followers, and overpowers the +protests of enemies by sheer force of character. + +Mr. John Burns is at his real vocation when addressing a great multitude. +His energy finds an outlet in speech on those occasions, an outlet it can +never find in the necessary routine of office administration. He was made +for a life of action, and when once, in youth, he had thrown himself into +the active study of political and industrial questions, every opportunity +was seized for stating the results of that study. As a Social Democratic +candidate for Parliament, Mr. Burns polled 598 votes at West Nottingham in +1885. In 1886 he was charged (with Messrs. Hyndman, Champion, and Williams) +with seditious conspiracy--after an unemployed riot in the West End--and +acquitted. In 1887 he suffered six weeks imprisonment (with Mr. R.B. +Cunninghame Graham) for contesting the right of free speech in Trafalgar +Square. In 1889 came the great London dock strike, and, with Messrs. Mann +and Tillett, Mr. Burns was a chief leader of the dockers. Battersea +returned him to the London County Council in 1889 and to the House of +Commons in 1892. The Liberal Party promised a wider sphere of work than the +Socialists could offer; political isolation was a barren business; and Mr. +Burns gradually passed from the councils of the trade union movement to the +Treasury Bench of a Liberal Ministry. But the Socialist convictions of +early manhood had a lasting influence on their owner. These convictions +have been mellowed by work; responsibility has checked and placed under +subjection the old revolutionary ardour; experience finds the road to a +co-operative commonwealth by no means a quick or easy route, and admits the +necessity of compromise. But there is still a consciousness of the working +class as a class in the speeches of Mr. Burns; and there is still the +belief expressed that the working class must work out their own salvation, +and that it is better the people should have the power to manage their own +national and municipal affairs, and the wisdom to use that power aright, +rather than that a benevolent bureaucracy should manage things for them. +Mr. John Burns is an older man by twenty-five years than he was in the +stormy days of the Trafalgar Square riots, and he is now a Privy Councillor +and Cabinet Minister, but his character is little changed. His speeches on +the settlement of the great Dock Strike of August, 1911, are the speeches +of the man of 1889. Parliamentary life made sharper changes in the minds of +Gladstone and Mr. Joseph Chamberlain than it has made in the mind of the +Right Hon. John Burns. But Mr. Burns never admits that he possesses health +and vigour beyond the average. + +A working class leader of vastly different qualities is Mr. J. Keir Hardie, +M.P. He, too, no less significant of democracy, stands as the +representative of his class, claims always to be identified with it, to be +accepted as its spokesman. A Lanarkshire miner and active trade unionist, +Mr. Hardie has striven to create a working-class party in politics +independent of Liberals and Conservatives; to him, more than to any other +man, the existence of the Independent Labour Party and the Parliamentary +Labour Party--the latter consisting of the Independent Labour Party and the +trade unions--may justly be said to be due. The political independence of +an organised working class has been the one great idea of Mr. Hardie's +public life. Not by any means his only idea, for Mr. Hardie has been the +ever-ready supporter of all democratic causes and the faithful advocate of +social reforms; but the _great_ idea, the political pearl of great price, +for which, if necessary, all else must be sacrificed. Only by this +independence can democracy be achieved, and a more equal state of society +be accomplished--so Mr. Hardie has preached to the working people for the +last twenty-five years at public meetings and trade union congresses, +travelling the length and breadth of Great Britain in his mission. + +There is something of the poet in Mr. Keir Hardie but much more of the +prophet, and withal a good deal of shrewd political common sense. Where Mr. +John Burns wants, humanly, the approval and goodwill of his friends and +neighbours for his work, Mr. Keir Hardie is content with the assurance of +his own conscience; and in times of difficulty he chooses rather to walk +alone, communing with his own heart, than to seek the consolations of +social intercourse. + +Mr. Burns is a citizen of London, a lover of its streets, at home in all +its noise, a reveller in its festivities. Mr. Hardie belongs to his native +land; he is happier on the hills of Lanarkshire than in the Parliament of +Westminster; solitude has no terrors for him. Both men entered the House in +1892. Personal integrity, blameless private life, and a doggedness that +will not acknowledge defeat, have had much to do with the success that both +have won. For if Mr. Hardie remains a private member of the House of +Commons while Mr. Burns is a Cabinet Minister, Mr. Hardie has lived to see +an independent Labour Party of forty members in Parliament, and has himself +been its accredited leader. + +Again, exceptional gifts may be noted. An eloquence of speech, a rugged +sincerity that carries conviction, a love of nature and of literature--all +these things, controlled and tempered by will and refined by use, have won +for Mr. Hardie a high regard and an affection for the cause he champions. +For years Mr. Hardie was misrepresented in the Press, abused by political +opponents and misunderstood by many of the working class. From 1895 to 1900 +he was out of Parliament, rejected by the working-class electorate of South +West Ham. But nothing turned Mr. Hardie from his policy of independence, or +shook his faith in the belief that only by forming a political party of +their own could the working people establish a social democracy. Merthyr +Tydvil re-elected him to the House of Commons in 1900 at the very time when +he was braving a strong public opinion by denouncing the South African War; +and for Merthyr Mr. Hardie will sit as long as he is in Parliament. + +It may safely be said that Mr. Hardie will never take office in a Liberal +Ministry. The sturdy republicanism that keeps him from court functions and +from the dinner parties of the rich and the great, and the strong +conviction that Labour members do well to retain simple habits of life, are +not qualities that impel men to join Governments. + +Visionary as he is--and no less a visionary because he has seen some +fulfilment of his hopes--so indifferent to public opinion that many have +exclaimed at his indiscretions, with a religious temperament that makes him +treat his political work as a solemn calling of God and gives prophetic +fire to his public utterances, Mr. Keir Hardie may remain a private member +of Parliament; but he also remains an outstanding figure in democratic +politics, conspicuous in an age that has seen the working class rising +cautiously to power. Mr. Hardie's influence with the politically minded of +the working class has contributed in no small degree to the changes that +are now at work. The ideal of a working class, educated and organised, +taking up the reins of government and using its power in sober +righteousness, has been preached by Mr. Hardie with a fervour that commands +respect. He has made an appeal that has moved the hearts of men and women +by its religious note, and hence it is very considerably from the ranks of +Nonconformists with Puritan traditions that the Independent Labour Party +has been recruited. Mr. Hardie is now fifty-five years of age. He has never +been afraid of making mistakes, and he has never sought the applause of +men. He has succeeded in arousing large numbers of people from a passive +allegiance to the party governments of Liberals and Conservatives, and +constrained them to march under a Labour banner at political contests. +Whether the Labour Party in Parliament will remain a separate organisation +or will steadily become merged in the Liberal Party, forming perhaps a +definite left wing of that party: whether a sufficiently large number of +voters will ever be found to make the Labour Party anything more than a +group in Parliament: and whether the Independent Labour movement is not +passing as Robert Owen's socialist movement and as the Chartist movement +passed away in the middle of the nineteenth century, are questions that are +yet to be answered. Democracy will go its own way in spite of the prophets. +In any case, the work of Mr. Keir Hardie has been fruitful and valuable. +For it has made for a quickened intelligence, and a more exalted view of +human life amongst the working people; and it has increased the sense of +personal and civic responsibility. It has made for civilisation, in fact, +and it has insisted on the importance of things that democracy can only +forget to its own destruction. + +The third distinguished working-class leader in Parliament is Mr. J. Ramsay +MacDonald, the elected leader of the Labour Party, and its secretary since +its formation. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald is for the working class, but, though +born of labouring people, and educated in a Scotch board school, has long +ceased to be of them. Never a workman, and never associated with the +workman's trade union, Mr. MacDonald went from school teaching to +journalism and to a political private secretaryship, and so settled down +quickly into the habits and customs of the ruling middle class. Marriage +united him still more closely with the middle class, and strengthened his +position by removing all fear of poverty, and providing opportunities for +travel. + +From the first Mr. MacDonald's political life has been directed clearly to +one end--the assumption of power to be used for the social improvement of +the people. And this ambition has carried him far, and may carry him +farther. With the industry and persistence that are common to his race, Mr. +MacDonald has taken every means available to educate himself on all +political questions; with the result that he is accepted to-day as one of +the best informed members of the House of Commons. He taught himself to +speak, and his speeches are appreciated. He taught himself to write, and +his articles on political questions have long been welcome in the monthly +reviews, and his books on Socialism are widely read. Twenty years ago the +Liberal Party promised no political career to earnest men like Mr. +MacDonald, men anxious for social reform. The future seemed to be with the +Socialists, and with the Independent Labour Party. When the Liberal +downfall came in 1895, it was thought that the fortunes of Liberalism were +ended. Native prudence has restrained Mr. Ramsay MacDonald from pioneering, +but once the Independent Labour Party, of Mr. Keir Hardie's desire, was set +going, and promised an effectual means for political work, Mr. MacDonald +joined it, and did well to do so. As an ordinary Liberal or Radical Member +of Parliament, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald would never have had the opportunities +the Labour Party has given him. He only entered the House of Commons in +1906--at the age of forty--and already as leader of the Labour Party he is +a distinguished Parliamentary figure, of whose future great things are +foretold. + +Mr. MacDonald has studied politics as other people study art or science. He +has trained himself to become a statesman as men and women train themselves +to become painters and musicians. He has learnt the rules of the game, +marked the way of failure and the road to success, and his career may be +pondered as an example to the young. No generous outburst of wrath +disfigures Mr. MacDonald's speeches, no rash utterance is ever to be +apologised for, no hasty impulse to be regretted. In the Labour movement +Mr. MacDonald won success over older men by an indefatigable industry, a +marked aptitude for politics, and by an obvious prosperity. Other things +being equal, it is inevitable that in politics, as in commerce, the needy, +impecunious man will be rejected in favour of the man with an assured +balance at the bank, and the man of regular habits preferred before a +gifted but uncertain genius. The Socialist and Labour movements of our time +have claimed the services of many gifted men and women, and the annals of +these movements are full of heroic self-sacrifice. But an aptitude for +politics was not a distinguishing mark of Socialists, and therefore Mr. +MacDonald's experience and abilities gave him at once a prominent place in +the council of the Independent Labour Party, and soon made him the +controlling power in that organisation. With the formation of the National +Labour Party a very much wider realm was to be conquered, and Mr. MacDonald +has been as successful here as in the earlier Independent Labour Party. But +now the Labour Party having made Mr. MacDonald its chairman, it can do no +more for him. He is but forty-five years old, his health is good, his +talents are recognised; by his aversion from everything eccentric or +explosive, the public have understood that he is trustworthy. We may expect +to see Mr. Ramsay MacDonald a Cabinet Minister in a Liberal-Labour +Government. It may even happen that he will become Prime Minister in such a +Government. He is a "safe" man, without taint of fanaticism. His sincerity +for the improvement of the lot of the poor does not compel him to +extravagant speech on the subject, and his imagination is sufficient to +exclude dullness of view. He has proved that the application of Socialist +principles does not require any violent disturbance of the existing order, +and is compatible with social respectability and political authority. A +public opinion that would revolt against the notion of an ex-workman +becoming Prime Minister would not be outraged in any way by Mr. MacDonald +holding that office. Mr. Burns and Mr. Hardie have remained in their own +and in the public eye representatives of the working class, all education +notwithstanding. Mr. MacDonald has long cut himself off from the labouring +class of his boyhood. He has adapted himself easily and naturally to the +life and manners of the wealthier professional classes, and he moves +without constraint in the social world of high politics, as one born to the +business. No recognition of the workman is possible in Mr. Ramsay +MacDonald's case, and this fact is greatly in his favour with the +multitudes who still hold that England should be ruled by "gentlemen." + +The Right Hon. D. Lloyd George is a striking figure in our new democracy, +and his character and position are to be noted. It was not as a labour +representative but as the chosen mouthpiece of the working middle class, +enthusiastic for Welsh nationalism, that Mr. Lloyd George entered +Parliament in 1890, at the age of twenty-seven. With his entry into the +Cabinet, in company with Mr. John Burns, at the Liberal revival in 1905, +government by aristocracy was ended; and when Mr. Lloyd George went from +the Board of Trade to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, startling +changes were predicted in national finance. These predictions were held to +have been fulfilled in the Budget of 1909. The House of Lords considered +the financial proposals of the Budget so revolutionary that it took the +unprecedented course of rejecting the Bill, and thus precipitated the +dispute between the two Houses of Parliament, which was brought to a +satisfactory end by the Parliament Act of 1911. Romantic and idealist from +the first, and with unconcealed ambition and considerable courage, Mr. +Lloyd George, with the strong backing of his Welsh compatriots, fought his +way into the front rank of the Liberal Party during the ten years +(1895-1905) of opposition. More than once Mr. George pitted himself against +Mr. Joseph Chamberlain in the days of the Conservative ascendancy and the +South African War, and his powers as a Parliamentary debater won general +acknowledgment. In youth Mr. Lloyd George, full of the fervour of Mazzini's +democratic teaching, dreamed of Wales as a nation, a republic, with +himself, perhaps, as its first president. Welsh nationalism could not breed +a Home Rule Party as Irish nationalism has done, and Mr. Lloyd George has +found greater scope for his talents in the Liberal Party. The Welsh +"question" has dwindled into a campaign for the Disestablishment of the +Church in Wales, a warfare of Dissenters and Churchmen, and to Mr. Lloyd +George there were bigger issues at stake than the position of the Welsh +Church. + +[Illustration: THE RIGHT HON. D. LLOYD GEORGE, M.P. + +_Photo: Reginald Haines, Southampton Row, W.C._] + +Already Mr. Lloyd George's Budget and his speeches in support of the Budget +have made the name of the Chancellor of the Exchequer familiar to the +people of Great Britain; and now, in the eager discussion on his Bill for +National Insurance, that name is still more loudly spoken. Hated by +opponents and praised by admirers, denounced and extolled, Mr. Lloyd George +enjoys the tumult he arouses. His passionate speeches for the poor provoke +the sympathy of the working class; his denunciations of the rich stir the +anger of all who fear social revolution. Hostile critics deny any +constructive statesmanship in Mr. Lloyd George's plans and orations, and +prophesy a short-lived tenure of office. Radical supporters hail him as a +saviour of society, and are confident that under his leadership democracy +will enter the promised land of peace and prosperity for all. Neutral minds +doubt whether Mr. Lloyd George is sufficiently well-balanced for the +responsibilities of high office, and express misgivings lest the era of +social reform be inaugurated too rapidly. The obvious danger of a fall +always confronts ambition in politics, but the danger is only obvious to +the onlooker. Pressing forward the legislative measures he has set his +heart upon, and impatient to carry out the policy that seems to him of +first importance to the State, Mr. Lloyd George pays little heed to the +criticism of friends or foes. A supreme self-confidence carries him along, +and the spur of ambition is constantly pricking. Political co-operation is +difficult for such a man, and an indifference to reforms that are not of +his initiation, and a willingness to wreck legislation that cannot bear his +name, are a weakness in Mr. Lloyd George that may easily produce a fall. +Only a very strong man can afford to say that a reform shall be carried in +his way, or not at all, in cheerful disregard of the wishes of colleagues +and followers. Mr. Lloyd George's attitude on the question of Women's +Suffrage is characteristic. Professing a strong belief in the justice of +women's enfranchisement, he assumes that he can safely oppose all Women's +Suffrage Bills that are not of his framing, even when these Bills are the +work of ardent Liberals. He would have the measure postponed until he +himself can bring in a Reform Bill, to the end that the enfranchisement of +women may be associated with his name for all time. + +It is dangerous to the statesman, the ambition that finds satisfaction less +in the success of a party or the triumph of a cause, than in the personal +victory. Dangerous, because it brings with it an isolation from friends and +colleagues. These come to stand coldly aloof, and then, if a slip occurs or +a mistake is made, and there comes a fall, no hands are stretched out to +repair the damage or restore the fallen. The statesman who is suspected of +"playing for his own hand" may laugh at the murmurs of discontent amongst +his followers while all goes well for him, but when he falls he falls +beyond recovery. No one can foretell the end of Mr. Lloyd George's career, +but his popularity with the multitude will not make up to him for the want +of support in Parliament should an error of judgment undo him. The pages of +political history are strewn with the stories of high careers wrecked in a +feverish haste for fame, that overlooked dangers close at hand; of eminent +politicians broken in the full course of active life by the mere +forgetfulness of the existence of other persons. A simple miscalculation of +forces, and from lofty station a minister tumbles into the void. + +The stability of the working-class leaders makes their future a matter of +fairly safe conjecture. Mr. Lloyd George, romantic in temperament, covetous +of honour, confident of popularity, but heedless of good-will alienated and +of positive ill-will created, has reached the Chancellorship of the +Exchequer. Will he climb still higher in office, or will he pass to the +limbo peopled by those who were and are not? Time alone can tell. But in +this year of grace 1911 Mr. Lloyd George, incarnation of the hard-working +middle class, is a very distinct personality in the government of the +country, and his presence in the Cabinet a fact in the history of +democracy. + +THE PRESENT POSITION OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS + +More than once since 1831 the House of Lords has come into conflict with +the House of Commons when a Liberal Government has been in power. A +compromise was effected between the two Houses over the Disestablishment of +the Irish Church in 1869, the Lords, on the whole, giving way. When the +Lords proposed to "amend" the Army Reform Bill (for abolishing the purchase +of commissions) in 1871, Gladstone overpowered their opposition by advising +the Crown to cancel the Royal Warrant which made purchase legal, and to +issue a new warrant ending the sale of commissions. This device completely +worsted the House of Lords, for a refusal to pass the Bill under the +circumstances merely deprived the holders of commissions of the +compensation awarded in the Bill. The Army Reform Bill became law, but +strong objection was taken by many Liberals to the sudden exercise of the +Royal Prerogative. In 1884 the Lords refused to pass the Bill for the +enfranchisement of the rural labourer unless a Bill was brought in at the +same time for a redistribution of seats. After some discussion Gladstone +yielded, the Redistribution Bill was drawn up, and passed the Commons +simultaneously with the Franchise Bill in the Lords. + +Several Bills have been rejected or "amended" by the Lords since the +Liberals came into power in 1906, and the crisis came when the Budget was +rejected in 1909. In June, 1907, the following resolution was passed by the +House of Commons by 432 to 147 votes: "That in order to give effect to the +will of the people, as expressed by their elected representatives, it is +necessary that the power of the other House to alter or reject Bills passed +by this House should be so restricted by law as to secure that within the +limits of a single Parliament the final decision of the Commons shall +prevail." This resolution was embodied in the Parliament Bill of 1911. +Between 1907 and 1911 came (1) the rejection of the Budget, November, 1909; +(2) the General Election of January, 1910, and the return of a majority of +124 (Liberal, Labour, and Irish Nationalist) in support of the Government; +(3) the passing of resolutions (majority, 105) for limiting the Veto of the +Lords; (4) the failure of a joint Conference between leading Liberals and +Conservatives on the Veto question, followed by (5) the General Election of +December, 1910, and the return of the Liberals with a united majority of +126. + +The Parliament Bill declared that every Money Bill sent up by the Commons, +if not passed unamended by the Lords within a month, should receive the +Royal assent and become an Act of Parliament notwithstanding, and that +every Bill sent up for three successive sessions shall in the third session +become an Act of Parliament without the assent of the Lords. + +The Lords passed this Bill with amendments which the Commons refused to +accept, and the Parliament Bill was returned to the Lords in August. But, +as in 1832, the Prime Minister announced that he had received guarantees +from the Crown that peers should be created to secure the passage of the +Bill if it was again rejected; and to avoid the making of some three or +four hundred Liberal peers, Lord Lansdowne--following the example of the +Duke of Wellington--advised the Conservatives in the House of Lords to +refrain from opposition. The result of this abstention was that the Lords' +amendments were not persisted in, and the Bill passed the Lords on August +10th, 1911, by 131 to 114 votes. + +By this Parliament Act the Lords' veto is now strictly limited. The Lords +may reject a Bill for two sessions, but if the Commons persist, then the +Bill passes into law, whether the Lords approve or disapprove. + +The real grievance against the House of Lords, from the democratic +standpoint, has been that its veto was only used when a Liberal government +was in power. There is not even a pretence by the Upper House of revising +the measures sent from the Commons by a Conservative ministry; yet over and +over again, and especially in the last five years, Liberal measures have +been rejected, or "amended" against the will of the Commons, by the Lords +after the electors have returned the Liberals to power. The permanent and +overwhelming Conservative majority in the Lords acts on the assumption that +a Liberal ministry does not represent the will of the people, an assumption +at variance with the present theory of democratic government, and in +contradiction to the constitutional practice of the Crown. The great size +of the House of Lords makes the difficulty of dealing with this majority so +acute. In 1831 the creation of forty peerages would have been sufficient to +meet the Tory opposition to the Reform Bill; to-day it is said that about +four hundred are required to give the Liberals a working majority in the +Lords. The rapid making of peers began under George III., but from 1830 to +the present day Prime Minister after Prime Minister has added to the +membership of the House of Lords with generous hand. Satire, savage and +contemptuous, has been directed against the new peers by critics of various +opinions, but still the work of adding to the House of hereditary +legislators goes gaily on, and Liberal Prime Ministers have been as active +as their Tory opponents in adding to the permanent Conservative majority in +the Lords; for only a small minority of Liberal peers retain their +allegiance to the Liberal Party. + +Thackeray gave us his view of the making of peers in the years when Lord +Melbourne and his Whig successors were steadily adding to the Upper House. +(Between 1835 and 1841 Melbourne made forty-four new peers, and +twenty-eight more were added by 1856.) + +"A man becomes enormously rich, or he jobs successfully in the aid of a +Minister, or he wins a great battle, or executes a treaty, or is a clever +lawyer who makes a multitude of fees and ascends the bench; and the country +rewards him for ever with a gold coronet (with more or less balls or +leaves) and a title, and a rank as legislator. 'Your merits are so great,' +says the nation, 'that your children shall be allowed to reign over us, in +a manner. It does not in the least matter that your eldest son is a fool; +we think your services so remarkable that he shall have the reversion of +your honours when death vacates your noble shoes.'" + +J.H. Bernard, in his "Theory of the Constitution" (1835), was no less +emphatic:-- + +"As the affair is managed now, the peerage, though sometimes bestowed as +the reward of merit, on men who have adorned particular professions, is yet +much more frequently--nine times out of ten--employed by the minister of +the day as his instrument to serve particular views of public policy; and +is often given to actual demerit--to men who hire themselves out to do his +commands through thick and thin. The peerage is now full of persons who +have obtained possession of it by disreputable means." + +But in spite of satire and hostile criticism members of the House of Lords +have always enjoyed a considerable social popularity. They are widely +esteemed for their titles, even by those who denounce hereditary +legislators and desire to abolish the Second Chamber. + +Disraeli created six new peers in 1867-8, and seventeen more from 1875 to +1880, in addition to conferring the earldom of Beaconsfield on himself. Yet +Disraeli had written in "Coningsby" (1844):-- + +"We owe the English peerage to three sources: the spoliation of the Church, +the open and flagrant sale of its honours by the elder Stuarts, and the +borough-mongering of our own times. Those are the three main sources of the +existing peerage of England, and, in my opinion, disgraceful ones." + +Gladstone made fifty peers in his four premierships, and Mr. Herbert Paul, +the Liberal historian of "Modern England," makes the following comments:-- + +"No minister since Pitt had done so much as Mr. Gladstone to enlarge and +thereby to strengthen the House of Lords. + +"Mr. Gladstone was lavish in his distribution of peerages, and rich men who +were politically active, either in the House of Commons or behind the +scenes, might hope to be rewarded with safe seats elsewhere." + +[Illustration: THE PASSING OF THE PARLIAMENT BILL IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS + +_From the Drawing by S. Begg._] + +Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman exceeded all previous records of the last +century by making twenty new peers in less than two years--1905 to +1907--and Mr. Asquith maintained this vigorous policy by thirteen new +creations in the first year of his premiership. Already many of these +peers, whose titles are not more than six years old, vote with the +Conservatives. Great Britain is now the only country in the world that +combines a democratic form of government with a second chamber of +hereditary legislators, and many proposals are on foot for the reform of +the House of Lords. While the Conservatives are more anxious to change the +constitution of the Upper House, and to make it a stronger and more +representative assembly, the Liberals prefer that its power of veto should +be abolished. No Act of Parliament was required to abolish the veto of the +Crown on Acts of Parliament, but the growth of a democratic public opinion +did not prove strong enough to end the veto of the Lords on the Bills +passed by a Liberal majority in the Commons, and therefore the Parliament +Act was passed. + +THE POPULARITY OF THE CROWN + +The popularity of the Crown has become increasingly wider and more general +in the years that have seen the British people steadily taking up the work +of self-government. The fear of a hostile demonstration by the inhabitants +of London kept William IV. from visiting the Mansion House in 1830, and the +death of that monarch in 1837 evoked no national mourning. Queen Victoria, +unknown to the people on her accession, had the very great advantage of +Lord Melbourne's political advice in the early years of her reign. Her +marriage, in 1840, with the Prince Consort--who himself learnt much from +Melbourne--brought a wise counsellor to the assistance of the throne. "I +study the politics of the day with great industry," wrote the Prince +Consort. "I speak quite openly to the Ministers on all subjects, and +endeavour quietly to be of as much use to Victoria as I can." The Prince +Consort saw quickly that "if monarchy was to rise in popularity, it could +only be by the sovereign leading a good life, and keeping quite aloof from +party." The days of a profligate court and of "the King's friends" in +politics were past and gone; the royal _influence_ was to succeed the royal +_prerogative_.[87] + +The aloofness from political partisanship has been faithfully maintained by +the successors of Queen Victoria, and great as the royal influence may be +in the social life of the wealthier classes, it is certain that no such +influence operates in the casting of votes by the people at Parliamentary +elections. No one suspects the King of desiring the return of Liberals over +Tories, or of favouring the Tory programme rather than the Liberal; and +this neutrality is the surest guarantee of the continued popularity of the +Crown. + +For some years in the late 'seventies and early 'eighties of the nineteenth +century Republicanism was the creed of many ardent working-class Radicals +in England. Charles Bradlaugh was its chief exponent, and both Mr. Joseph +Chamberlain and the late Sir Charles Dilke were regarded as Republicans +before they entered Gladstone's Ministry in 1880. The Republican movement +waned before Bradlaugh's death. He himself was "led to feel that agitation +for an ideal form of government was less directly fruitful than agitation +against the abuses of class privilege; and in the last dozen years of his +life, his political work went mainly to reforms within the lines of the +Constitution."[88] + +With the rise of the Socialist movement in England in 1884-5, and the +celebration of the Queen's Jubilee in 1887, Republicanism became utterly +moribund, and nothing save an attempt on the part of the sovereign to take +a definite side in party politics, or a notorious lapse from the morals +required of persons in office of State, could revive it. + +The interest in Socialism was fatal to the Republican movement, because it +turned the enthusiasm of the active spirits in democratic politics from the +desire for radical changes in the _form_ of government, to the crusade for +economic changes, and the belief in a coming social revolution. The +existence of monarchy seemed a small and comparatively unimportant affair +to men and women who were hoping to get poverty abolished, and the +landlords and capitalists expropriated either by direct revolution, or by +the act of a House of Commons, dominated by working men with Socialist +convictions. + +The national celebrations at the Queen's Jubilee in 1887 marked the +beginning of the popular revival in pageantry and official ceremonial. In +the Church of England this revival began some forty years earlier, and it +has, in our day, changed the whole conduct of public worship. The revival +of Roman Catholicism in England with its processions and solemn ritual has +been equally significant. By gratifying the common human instinct for +spectacle and drama the monarchy has gained the popular affections. + +The Whigs scoffed at pageants and symbols; the earlier Puritans had +proscribed ceremonial as savouring of idolatry, and feared any +manifestation of beauty as a snare of the devil. In the latter half of the +nineteenth century, England began to throw off the shackles of Puritanism, +and to lose all interest in Whiggery. The new democracy was neither coldly +Deist, nor austerely Republican. It has shown no inclination to inaugurate +a reign of "pure reason" in religion or politics, but has boldly and +cheerfully adopted symbolism and pageantry. Friendly societies and trade +unions have their badges, banners, and buttons. The Roman Catholic Church +grows in popularity with the working class, and in many towns and cities +the Church of England and the Salvation Army are distinctly popular. On the +other hand, the Nonconformist churches confess annually to a decreasing +membership, and Secularist and Ethical societies have but the smallest +following. + +The royal processions and the pageantry of monarchy have provided a +spectacular display that average human nature enjoys. The symbols and +trappings of monarchy must be shown if the sovereign is to be popular; they +add to the gaiety of life, and people are grateful for the warmth of colour +they impart to our grey streets. The sovereign in encouraging the renewed +and growing love for pageants and ceremonial has discerned the signs of the +times. Modern democracy does not desire that kings or priests shall rule; +but it does require that they shall on State occasions and in the +performance of their office, be clad in kingly and priestly robes, and by +their proceedings enrich the dignity of public life, and the beauty of +public worship. + +THE DEMOCRATIC IDEALS: SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM + +The rise of Socialism in the 'eighties not only diverted the attention of +working-class leaders from political reform, but it substituted for the +destruction of monarchy and the House of Lords a reconstruction of society +as the goal of democracy; and the Socialist teaching has been of enduring +and penetrating influence. + +Fifty years earlier in the nineteenth century, Robert Owen had preached a +Socialist crusade with strenuous persuasion--but, ignoring politics, he +outlived the temporary success of his cause. The utopian Socialism of Owen +flourished and died, as Chartism, under different treatment, flourished and +died. + +The "scientific" Socialism of Karl Marx was planned on stronger +foundations. It brought a message of hope; it revealed how the change was +to be wrought that would "emancipate the workers of the world from the +slavery of wage service"; and it insisted that this change was inevitable. +On the Continent, and more particularly in Germany, the Social Democratic +Party has gained an enormous working-class support, and every election adds +to its strength. + +In England the Social Democratic Federation--now the Social Democratic +Party--was founded in 1884 by Mr. H.M. Hyndman; but in spite of its +untiring efforts, it has never won the sympathy of the trade unions, nor +the confidence of the working-class electorate. Its Parliamentary +candidatures rarely attract attention, and it is not a force in Labour +politics. Nevertheless, indirectly, the influence of the Social Democratic +Party has been very considerable. Mr. John Burns, and many another Labour +leader, have passed through its ranks, and a social conscience has been +made sensitive to the miseries of the poor, largely by the voices--that +will not be silenced--of this comparatively small company. + +The Fabian Society also began its work of educating public opinion to +Socialism in 1884, but, unlike the Social Democratic Federation, it made no +proposals for the creation of a Socialist Party or the organisation of the +working class into a separate political party. Mainly, its influence can be +seen in the increase of statistical knowledge and of State interference in +the conditions of life and labour in the working class. + +The Independent Labour Party was not formed till 1892, and while professing +Socialism, it has aimed rather at securing the return of labour members to +Parliament, and to local governing councils than at the conversion of the +working class to a dogmatic social democracy. Often frankly opportunist and +experimental, the Independent Labour Party and its offspring, the Labour +Party in the House of Commons, have followed the national custom in +politics of attacking and redressing evident evils, and have done this with +considerable success. + +But while the Socialists have compelled the attention of all classes to +existing social ills, and have made social reform the chief concern of all +politicians, the idea of a social democracy steadily recedes from the +political vision, and the conscious movement to Socialism falters. +Socialist workmen in Parliament or on city councils soon find themselves +absorbed in the practical work of legislation or administration, and learn +that there is neither leisure nor outlet for revolutionary propaganda. The +engrossing character of public work destroys the old inclination to break +up the existing order, for the Socialist member of Parliament, or city +councillor interested in his work, has become part of the machinery +responsible for the existing order, and without losing his sympathy for the +labouring people is content that the amelioration of society shall come, as +it now seems to him it must come, by slow and orderly stages and without +violence. The very return of so many Labour members to Parliament and to +local councils has damped down the fires of Socialism, by placing in +positions of authority and responsibility, and thereby withdrawing them +from the army of disaffection, the ablest leaders of the working-class +movement. The Labour member who cannot settle down to legislative or +administrative work, but attempts to play the agitator's part in the House +of Commons or the council chamber, is generally doomed to banishment from +official public life, and is allowed to remain an agitator. + +Mr. John Burns may be denounced as a renegade by Socialist critics, but a +working-class electorate returns him to Parliament. Mr. Cunninghame Graham +and Mr. Victor Grayson may be applauded for their consistency by Socialist +audiences, but working-class constituencies are loth to return such +representatives to the House of Commons. + +As Socialism quietly passes out of the vision of the political world, and +from a definite inspiration to democracy becomes a dim and remote +possibility of the future, Social Reform takes its place. Not only in Great +Britain, but throughout Europe, the social reformers or "revisionists" are +gaining the mastery over the scientific Marxian Socialists in democratic +politics. In Great Britain where "practical," or experimental, politics +have always prevailed over political theory, the passing of positive +Socialist dogma is naturally more obvious. Social Reform is now the cry of +Liberals and Conservatives alike. The old Liberal doctrines of _laissez +faire_, unrestricted competition, and the personal liberty of the subject +are as dead as the Stuart doctrine of the divine right of kings. The old +Liberal hostility to State interference in trade or commerce, and to +compulsory social legislation has melted away at the awakened social +conscience. It still has its adherents--Lord Cromer and Mr. Harold Cox +repeat the ancient watch-words of Victorian Liberalism, and they are +regarded with a respect mingled with curiosity, as strange survivals of a +far-off age--but no popular echo follows their utterances. Pensions for the +aged, better provision for the sick and the infirm, a more careful +attention to the well-being of children, national health, some cure for +destitution, and some remedy for unemployment--these are the matters that a +Liberal Government is concerned about to-day. And the Conservatives are no +less sincere in their willingness to help in these matters. Legislative +proposals for social reform are treated as non-party questions, and the +chief item in the Conservative programme, Tariff Reform, was adopted and is +advocated mainly as a social reform, a cure for industrial evils, and the +misery of unemployment. + +Socialism proposed the abolition of poverty, and the common ownership and +control of the land and the means of production, distribution, and exchange +as the solution of economic questions. + +Social Reform proposes to mitigate the hardships of life for the multitude, +and, while leaving land and capital in private hands, to compel by taxation +provision for the wants of the people. Its aim is the abolition of +destitution by State assistance to voluntary effort, and the gradual +raising of the standard of life. It does not propose to remove the cause of +poverty. + +Socialism would place the democracy in possession of the means of wealth. +Social Reform requires the State to tax wealth and provide for the people. +It promises a living wage, decent housing accommodation, an insurance +against unemployment, and security in old age, and leaves the question of +national ownership or private ownership to be settled by posterity. + +LAND REFORM AND THE SINGLE TAX + +Apart from the ideals of Socialism, the democratic ideal of a community +owning the full value of its land was presented by Henry George, an +American economist, in 1879, and his book "Progress and Poverty," was at +once received with enthusiasm by certain reformers in England and America. +George visited England in 1881, 1884, and 1889, and his visits resulted in +a strong movement for the taxation of land values. This movement has been +inspired by an ideal of a democratic community as definite as the Socialist +ideal, and it has grown steadily in popular favour as the justice of a tax +on land values has been recognised. "Progress and Poverty" is the bible of +the Land Reformers, as Marx's "Capital" is (or was) the bible of +Socialists. It is claimed that a tax on land values is the true remedy of +social and economic ills, and that democracy can eradicate the root-cause +of poverty by such a tax. In this belief the followers of Henry George have +preached the Single Tax, as it is called, with unquenchable fervour, and +the Liberal Party has been gradually won over--if not to the Single Tax, at +least to a tax on land values. Many Conservatives, too, favour the taxation +of land values in cities, and all the principal municipalities have +petitioned Parliament in favour of this method of taxation. But it is the +democratic ideals of Henry George that have been the life of the movement +for the Single Tax, and but for these ideals the movement would never have +become a living influence towards democracy, or inspired a social +enthusiasm. + +The charm about the Single Tax propaganda is that its ideals of democracy +do not discourage the practical politician and the average citizen from +supporting what seems a necessary and reasonable proposal. Without +committing themselves at all to Henry George's full scheme for the total +abolition of land monopoly by a tax of twenty shillings in the pound on all +land values, and without abandoning the common British suspicion of the +doctrinaire and the political idealist, the ordinary shopkeeper and +householder are quite of opinion that urban values in land can be taxed +legitimately for the benefit of the community, and that democracy would do +well to decree some moderate tax on land values for the relief of the +overtaxed non-landowner. + +So the taxation of land values is presented by its advocates as a social +reform more radical and democratic than all other social reforms, as a +reform that in fact would make democracy master of its own land, and the +people free from the curse of poverty; and it is accepted by the great mass +of working people as a just and useful method of raising revenue for local +and imperial needs. + +Socialism, social reform, the Single Tax--various are the ideals of a +democratic people at work at the business of government, and various are +the means proposed to establish the democracy in economic freedom. + + * * * * * + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE WORLD-WIDE MOVEMENT: ITS STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS + +EAST AND WEST + +The movement towards democracy is world-wide to-day, and the political +constitutions of the West are desired with fervour in the East. + +For generations there has been agitation in Russia for representative +government, and men and women--in countless numbers--have sacrificed +wealth, reputation, liberty, and life itself in the cause of political +freedom. On the establishment in 1906 of the Duma, a national chamber of +elected members, there was general rejoicing, because it seemed that, at +length, autocracy was to give place to representative government. But the +hopes of the political reformers were short lived. The Duma still exists, +but its powers were closely restricted in 1907, and the franchise has been +narrowed, to secure an overwhelming preponderance of the wealthy, so that +it is altogether misleading to regard it as a popular assembly. + +In Egypt and in India the Nationalist movements are directed to +self-government, and are led by men who have, in most cases, spent some +years at an English University, or have been trained at the English Bar. +Residence in England, and a close study of British politics make the +educated Indian anxious for political rights in his own country, similar to +those that are given to him in Great Britain. In England the Indian has all +the political rights of a British subject. He can vote for a member of +Parliament, he can even be a member of the House of Commons. On two +occasions in recent years, an Indian has been elected to Parliament: Mr. +Dadabhai Naoroji sat as Liberal M.P. for Finsbury, 1892-5; Sir M.M. +Bhownagree as a Conservative for Bethnal Green, 1895-1906. Back in his +native land, the Indian finds that he belongs to a subject race, and that +the British garrison will neither admit him to social equality, nor permit +him the right of legislation. Hence with eyes directed to Western forms of +government, the Indian is discontented with the bureaucracy that rules his +land, and disaffected from the Imperial power. But so many are the nations +in India, and so poverty-stricken is the great multitude of its peasantry +that the Nationalist movement can touch but the fringe of the population, +and the millions of India live patiently and contentedly under the British +Crown. Nevertheless, the national movement grows steadily in numbers and in +influence, for it is difficult for those who, politically minded, have once +known political freedom, to resign themselves to political subjection. + +In Egypt the Nationalist movement is naturally smaller and more +concentrated than in India and the racial divisions hinder its unity. Egypt +is nominally under the suzerainty of Turkey, though occupied by Great +Britain, and now that Turkey has set up a Constitution and a Parliament, +patriotic Egyptian politicians are impatient at the blocking out by the +British authorities of every proposal for self-government. + +As in India, so in Egypt: it is the men of education who are responsible +for the Nationalist movement. And in both countries it is the desire to +experiment in representative government, to test the constitutional forms +in common use in the West, and to practise the responsibilities of +citizenship, that stimulates the movement. The unwillingness of the British +Government to gratify this desire explains the hostility to British rule in +India and Egypt. + +Japan received a Constitution from the Emperor in 1890, and in 1891 its +Diet was formally opened with great national enthusiasm. It is a +two-chamber Parliament--a Council of nobles, and a popularly elected +assembly--and only in the last few years have the business men given their +attention to it. Although the Cabinet is influenced by Japanese public +opinion, it is not directly responsible to the Diet, but is the Ministry of +the Mikado. The resolution of the Japanese statesmen of forty years ago to +make Japan a world-power made Constitutional Government, in their eyes, a +necessity for the nation. + +In Europe, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark all possess democratic +constitutions, and only the removal of sex disabilities in the latter two +is needed to achieve complete adult suffrage. Finland established complete +democracy nine years ago, and, with equal electoral districts, complete +adult suffrage, and the free election of women equally with men to its +Diet, is a model democratic state. But the liberties of Finland are gravely +threatened by the Russian Government, and there is no security for the +Finns that their excellent self-government will be preserved. In Germany, +with universal manhood suffrage, the struggle is to make the Government +responsible to the elected Reichstag. + +The British self-governing Colonies show a tendency of democracy to +federate. The Australian Colonies are federated into a Commonwealth, and +their example has been followed by the South African Colonies. New Zealand +and Australia are at one in their franchise, which allows no barrier of +sex; but South Africa still restricts the vote to males. In Australia the +working class are in power, and the Commonwealth Prime Minister is a Labour +representative. There is no willingness to grant political rights to those +who are not of European race, either in South Africa or in Australia; and +the universal republic dreamed of by eighteenth century democrats, a +republic which should know no racial or "colour" bar, is not in the vision +of the modern colonial statesmen of democracy, who are frankly exclusive. +Only in New Zealand does a native race elect its own members to +Parliament--and four Maori M.P.'s are returned. + +TYRANNY UNDER DEMOCRATIC FORMS + +Experience has proved that democratic and republican forms of government +are no guarantee that the nation possesses political liberty. + +Mexico, nominally a republic under President Diaz, was in reality a +military autocracy of the severest kind. The South American Republics are +merely unstable monarchies, at the mercy of men who can manipulate the +political machinery and get control of the army. + +It is too early yet to decide whether the constitutional form of government +set up in Turkey in 1908, or the republic created on the abolition of +monarchy in Portugal in 1910, mark national movements to democracy. In +neither country is there evidence that general political freedom has been +the goal of the successful revolutionist, or that the people have obtained +any considerable measure of political power or civil liberty. Ambitious and +unscrupulous men can make full use of republican and democratic forms to +gain political mastery over their less cunning fellows, and no machinery of +government has ever yet been devised that will safeguard the weak and the +foolish from the authority of the strong and the capable. + +Those who put their trust in theories of popular sovereignty, and urge the +referendum and initiative as the surer instruments of democracy than +Parliamentary representation, may recall that a popular plebiscite +organised by Napoleon in 1802 conferred on him the Consulate for life; that +Louis Napoleon was made President of the French Republic in 1848 by a +popular vote, obtained a new constitution by a plebiscite in 1851, and a +year later arranged another plebiscite which declared him hereditary +Emperor, Napoleon III. France, where naturally Rousseau's theories have +made the deepest impression, has since the Revolution gloried in the right +of the "sovereign people" to overthrow the government, and its elected +representatives have been alternately at the mercy of dictators and social +revolutionists. + +On the whole, the stability of the British Government, rooted in the main +on the traditional belief in the representation of the electorate, would +seem to make more surely for national progress and wider political liberty +than the alternation of revolution and reaction which France has known in +the last hundred and twenty years. + +England has not been without its popular outbursts against what the +American poet called "the never-ending audacity of elected persons," but +these outbursts are commonly accepted as manifestations of intolerable +conditions; and while the outbursts are repressed means are taken by +Government to amend the conditions. When the Government fails to amend +things, the House of Commons takes the matter up; and if the Commons +neglect to do so, then the electors make it plain that amendment and reform +are necessary by returning men to Parliament pledged to change matters, and +by rejecting those who have failed to meet the situation. + +THE OBVIOUS DANGERS + +The dangers that threaten democracy are obvious. Universal adult suffrage, +short Parliaments, proportional representation, equal electoral districts, +second ballots--none of these things can insure democracy against +corruption. For a government which rests on the will of a people--a will +expressed by the election of representatives--is inevitably exposed to all +the evils attendant on the unruly wills and affections of the average man. + +The orator can play upon the feelings of the crowd, and sway multitudes +against a better judgment; and he has greater chance of working mischief +when a referendum or other direct instrument of democracy is in vogue than +he has when government is by elected representatives. For the party system, +itself open to plenty of criticism, constantly defeats the orator by the +superior power of organisation. Hence it frequently happens at +Parliamentary elections that a candidate whose meetings are enthusiastic +and well attended fails lamentably at the poll. His followers are a crowd; +they are not a party. They do not know each other, and they have not the +confidence that comes of membership in a large society. + +PARTY GOVERNMENT + +If the orator is a menace to the wise decisions of the people by a +referendum, the party organiser and political "boss" can easily be a curse +to representative government on party lines. By all manner of unholy +devices he can secure votes for his candidate and his party, and he has +raised (or lowered) the simple business of getting the people to choose +their representative into the art of electioneering. The triumph of +political principles by the election of persons to carry out those +principles becomes of less importance than the successful working of the +party machine, when the boss and the organiser are conspicuous. Patronage +becomes the method for keeping the party in power, and the promise of +rewards and spoils enables an opposition to defeat the Government and +obtain office. To be outside the party is to lose all chance of sharing in +the spoils, and to take an interest in politics means, under these +circumstances, to expect some consideration in the distribution of honours. + +The "spoils system" is notorious in America, but in England it has become +practically impossible for a man to take any serious part in politics +except by becoming part of the machine. An independent attitude means +isolation. To belong to a party--Liberal, Unionist, or Labour--and to +criticise its policy, or differ from its leaders, is resented as +impertinence. The machine is master of the man. A troublesome and dangerous +critic is commonly bought or silenced. He is given office in the +Government, or rewarded with a legal appointment; perhaps made a peer if +his tastes are in that direction. A critic who cannot command a +considerable backing among the electorate will probably be driven out of +public life. The disinterested activity in politics that puts the +commonwealth before party gain is naturally discouraged by the party +organisers. + +Yet when public interest in national affairs sinks to the merely sporting +instinct of "backing your candidate" at elections as a horse is backed at +race meetings, and of "shouting for your party" as men shout for their +favourite football team, or sinks still lower to the mercenary speculation +of personal gain or loss on election results, then another danger comes +in--the indifference of the average honest citizen to all politics, and the +cynical disbelief in political honesty. + +The warnings of John Stuart Mill against leaving politics to the +politicians and against the professional position may be quoted: + +"Representative institutions are of little value, and may be a mere +instrument of tyranny or intrigue when the generality of electors are not +sufficiently interested in their own government to give their vote; or, if +they vote at all, do not bestow their suffrages on public grounds, but sell +them for money, or vote at the beck of some one who has control over them, +or whom for private reasons they desire to propitiate. Popular elections as +thus practised, instead of a security against misgovernment, are but an +additional wheel in its machinery." + +Mill himself was a striking example of the entirely disinterested +politician, who, caring a great deal more for principles than for party, +finds little favour with the electors, and less with the party managers, +and retires from politics to the relief of his fellows. + +A general lack of interest in politics can prove fatal to democracy. The +party managers, without the fear of the electorate before their eyes, will +increase the number of salaried officials and strengthen their position by +judicious appointments. Nominally, these inspectors and officers will be +required for the public service, and the appointments will be justified on +patriotic grounds. There will be little criticism in Parliament, because +the party not in power will be anxious to create similar "jobs" when its +own turn comes. Besides, as the public pays for these officials, there is +no drain on the party funds; and this is a matter of congratulation to +party managers, who are always anxious not to spend more than they can help +on the political machinery. + +BUREAUCRACY + +But the horde of officials and inspectors will change democracy into +bureaucracy, and the discovery is sometimes made too late that a land is +ruled by permanent officials, and not by elected representatives. The +elected representatives may sit and pass laws, but the bureaucracy which +administers them will be the real authority. + +It may be an entirely honest and efficient bureaucracy, as free from +political partisanship as our British Civil Service and police-court +magistracy are, but if it is admitted to be outside the jurisdiction of the +House of Commons, and to be under no obedience to local councils, and if +its powers involve a close inquisition into the lives of the people, and +include the right to interfere daily with these lives, then bureaucracy and +not democracy is the actual government. + +A host of salaried political workers--agents, organisers, secretaries, +etc.--will make popular representative government a mere matter of +political rivalry, an affair of "ins and outs," and by this development of +the party system will exclude from active politics all who are not loyal to +the "machine," and are not strong enough to break it. But a host of public +officers--inspectors, clerks, etc.--paid out of the public funds will do +more than pervert representative government: they will make it subordinate +to the permanent official class; and bureaucracy, once firmly in the +saddle, is harder to get rid of than the absolutism of kings, or the rule +of an aristocracy. + +Yet a permanent Civil Service is better in every way in a democracy than a +Civil Service which lives and dies with a political party, and is changed +with the Cabinet. + +On the whole, the best thing for democracy is that the paid workers in +politics should be as few as possible, and the number of salaried state +officials strictly limited. The fewer the paid political workers, the fewer +people will be concerned to maintain the efficiency of the political +machine, and the more freely will the electorate act in the choice of its +representatives. The fewer the salaried officials of State, the less +inspection and restriction, and the less encouragement to habits of +submission in the people. Democracy must depend on a healthy, robust sense +of personal responsibility in its citizens, and every increase in the +inspectorate tends to diminish this personal responsibility, and to breed a +"servile state" that will fall a willing prey to tyranny and bureaucracy. + +Nevertheless, whilst in self-defence democracy will avoid increasing its +officials, it will distinguish between officials and employees. It is bound +to add to the number of its employees every year, as its municipal and +imperial responsibilities grow steadily larger, and these employees, +rightly regarded as public servants, cannot threaten to become our masters. + +WORKING-CLASS ASCENDANCY + +Still one more danger to democracy may be mentioned, and that is the notion +that from the working class must necessarily come our best rulers. + +"Rulers are not wise by reason of their number or their poverty, or their +reception of a weekly wage instead of a monthly salary or yearly income. It +is worse and more unpleasant and more dangerous to be ruled by many fools +than by one fool, or a few fools. The tyranny of an ignorant and cowardly +mob is a worse tyranny than the tyranny of an ignorant and cowardly clique +or individual. + +"Workers are not respectable or to be considered because they work more +with their hands or feet than with their brains, but because the work they +do is good. If it is not good work they do, they are as unprofitable as any +other wasters. A plumber is not a useful or admirable creature because he +plumbs (if he plumbs ignorantly or dishonestly, he is often either a +manslayer or a murderer), but because he plumbs well, and saves the +community from danger and damp, disease, and fire and water. Makers of +useless machine-made ornaments are, however 'horny-handed,' really +'anti-social persons,' baneful to the community as far as their bad work +goes; more baneful, possibly, than the consumers of these bad articles, +quite as baneful as the _entrepreneurs_ who employ them. + +"The only good institutions are those that do good work; the only good work +done is that which produces good results, whether they be direct, as the +plough-man's, or navvy's, or sailor's; or indirect, as the policeman, or +the schoolmaster, or the teacher of good art, or the writer of books that +are worth reading. A man is no better or wiser than others by reason of his +position or lack of position, but by reason of his stronger body, wiser +head, better skill, greater endurance, keener courage."[89] + +There it is. Democracy needs for its counsellors, legislators and +ministers, strength, wisdom, skill, endurance and courage, and must get +these qualities in whomsoever they are to be found. Democracy can afford +the widest range of choice in the election of popular representatives, or +it will never reach its full stature. + +In the choice of its representatives, a democracy will do well to elect +those who know the life of the working people, and who share its toils; +just as it will do well to shun the mere talker, and to seek out for itself +candidates for election rather than have candidates thrust upon its +attention by some caucus in London. But the main thing is that it should +first discern men and women of ability and of character and then elect them +for its representatives, rejecting those, it may be of more dazzling +qualities, who are unstable in mind and consumed with vanity. It would be +well if the elected representative were always an inhabitant of the county +or the borough, known to his neighbours, and of tested worth. True, the +prophet is often without honour in his own country, and a constituency acts +wisely in electing a representative of national repute. But to search for a +man of wealth who will subsidise every club and charitable institution in +the constituency, and to rejoice when such a candidate is procured from +some political headquarters, is a wretched proceeding in a democratic +state. The member who buys a constituency by his gifts will always feel +entitled to sell his constituents should occasion arise. + +Again, the delegate theory of representation can be a danger to democracy. + +A Parliamentary representative is something better than a mechanical +contrivance for registering the opinions of electors on certain subjects. +Otherwise all Parliamentary debate is a mockery. A representative he is of +the majority of electors, but he must act freely and with initiative. Often +enough he may be constrained to vote, not as many of his constituents would +prefer, but using his own judgment. Of course when the choice is between +obedience to the party whip and the wishes of his constituents, and +personal conviction is with the latter, then at all costs the decision +should be to stand by his constituents, or popular representation is a +delusion. + +To-day the pressure is far greater from the party whips than from the +constituents, especially when in so many cases election expenses are paid, +in part at least, from the party funds. And to overcome this constant +danger to popular representation a sure plan would be the payment of all +necessary election expenses out of the local rates, and the prohibition by +law of all payments by the candidate or by political associations. When +members are paid for their attendance in Parliament, far better would it +be, too, if such payment were made by the constituents in each case, and +not from the national exchequer.[90] Worse than the delegate theory is the +opinion that a representative of the people is in Parliament chiefly to +keep his party in power. Political parties are inevitable, and they are +effective and convenient when principles divide people. But popular +representation is older than a party system of government, and when it +becomes utterly subordinate to the welfare of parties it is time for a +democratic people to realise the possible loss of their instrument of +liberty. + +Great Britain is not partial to groups, it has always broadly been divided +politically into two camps, but a few men of strong independent judgment +are invaluable in a popular assembly. There need be no fear lest +governments totter and fall at the presence of men who dare to take a line +of their own, and to speak out boldly on occasion. The bulk of members of +Parliament will always cleave to their party, as the bulk of electors do, +and the dread of being thought singular is a potent influence on the +average man, in or out of Parliament. Democracy is in danger of losing the +counsel of its best men when it insists that its representatives must be +merely delegates of the electors, without minds or wills of their own; but +it is in greater danger if it allows its representatives to be nothing but +the tools of the party in power or in opposition. For when Parliamentary +representation is confined to those who are willing to be the mechanical +implements of party leaders and managers, the House of Commons becomes an +assembly of place-hunters and self-seekers, for whom the profession of +politics affords the gratification of vanity or enrichment at the public +expense. In such an assembly the self-respecting man with a laudable +willingness to serve the State is conspicuous by his absence. + +With a Press in the hands of party politicians, and with editors and +journalists engaged to write up their party through thick and thin, and to +write down every honest effort at political independence of mind, the +danger of losing from all political service the few rare minds that can ill +be spared is a very real and present danger. + +ON BEHALF OF DEMOCRACY + +"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance," and often enough we sleep at +our vigils. But when all the dangers and difficulties that beset democracy +are enumerated, and all its weak spots are laid bare, we can still hold +democracy to be the only suitable form of government for persons possessing +free will, and the representation of the people the most satisfactory +expression of democracy. + +Government by autocrat, by despotism, benevolent or otherwise, by expert +officials, or by an oligarchy of superior intelligences is irksome to the +average man or woman of reasonable education, and in each case has been +intolerable to the British people. They have all been tried and found +wanting--royal absolutism, aristocracy, military dictatorship, and only of +late have we been threatened by an expert bureaucracy. + +Parliamentary representation adapted, by the removal of disabilities of +creed and rank and income, to meet the demands of the nation, has been +proved by experience a clumsy but useful weapon for checking oppression. +Nowadays, we are using it less for defence against oppression, or as an +instrument for removing political grievances, and are testing its worth for +the provision of positive social reform. More and more it is required of +Parliament that means be found for getting rid of the ills around us, for +preventing disease and destitution, for promoting health and decency. + +And just because legislation is, at the prompting of a social conscience, +invading our homes and workshops, penetrating into prisons, workhouses, and +hospitals, touching the lives of all of us from the cradle to the grave, +the more imperative is it that our legislators should be chosen freely by +the widest electorate of men and women. We fall back on the old maxim: +"That which touches all shall be approved by all," and can perceive no +other way of obtaining that general approbation for the laws than by the +popular election of our representatives. + +Demagogues may exploit the popular will, the cunning and unscrupulous in +power may have us at their mercy, in our folly and indifference the nation +may be brought to grave losses; but still there is always the means of +recovery for the well-disposed while the vote remains in their hands. + +So it is that, in spite of obvious failings and shortcomings, democracy by +representative government remains for nations throughout the world that +have not yet tried it the goal of their political striving. We are alive to +the imperfections of democracy. It is no automatic machine for conferring +benefits in return for taxes. It is the creation of mankind, not a +revelation from heaven; and it needs, like all good human things, constant +attention and can bear many improvements. It has to be adjusted from time +to time to suit the growing capacities of mankind--as the popular assembly +gave way to the representative assembly--and only on the failure to make +the adjustment does it get rusty and out of order. It has to meet the +requirements of vast empires and mighty confederations of states, and to +fulfil the wants of small republics and parish councils. + +What but democracy can answer to the call for political liberty that sounds +from so many lands and in so many varying tongues? Did any other form of +government devised by the wit of man make such universal appeal? + +And when all is said and done--what does this democracy, this government by +popular representatives, mean, but government by the consent of the +governed--the only form of government tolerable to civilised mankind in the +twentieth century? + +Given a fairly good standard of common honesty in the ordinary dealings of +life, and the honesty of our public life, whether in Parliament or in the +Civil Service, in executive or administration, will serve. If the private +and commercial life is corroded with dishonesty, then democracy will be +bitten by knaves and rascals. For our chosen rulers have a way of +faithfully reflecting the morality of their electors, and are not free to +indulge their fancies, as kings of old were. + +Politics are not, and never will be, or ought to be, the chief interest and +concern of the mass of people in a healthy community where slavery is +extinct. And democracy makes no demand that would involve such interest and +concern. The choice of honest representatives, persons of goodwill, and +reasonable intelligence, is no tremendous task in a community where +honesty, goodwill, and intelligence prevail. And if these things do not +prevail, if honesty is contemned in business, and goodwill between man and +man despised, and intelligence frowned upon, then it is of small importance +what the government of such a nation is, for that nation is doomed, and it +is well for the world that it should be doomed. + +But, on the whole, it seems indisputable that the common people of the +great nations do cleave to honesty and goodwill, and that the desire for +intelligence is being widely fostered. As long, then, as we can count on +honesty, goodwill, and intelligence in our streets and market-places, as we +can to-day, mankind does well to elect its representatives to council and +Parliament and proclaim democracy--"Government of the people, by the +people, for the people"--as the proper government for mankind. + + * * * * * + + +Notes. + +[1] We cannot be sure about the constitution of the Witenagemot. The +evidence is conflicting, and, at best, we can only offer a statement of +opinion. + +[2] "The parish was the community of the township organised for Church +purposes and subject to Church discipline, with a constitution which +recognised the rights of the whole body as an aggregate, and the right of +every adult member, _whether man or woman_, to a voice in self-government, +but at the same time kept the self-governing community under a system of +inspection and restraint by a central authority outside the parish +boundaries."--Bishop Hobhouse, _Somerset Record Society_, Vol. IV. + +"The community had its own assembly--the parish meeting--which was a +deliberative assembly. It had its own officers, who might be either men or +women, duly elected, sometimes for a year, sometimes for life, but in all +cases subject to being dismissed for flagrant offences. The larger number +of these officials had well-defined duties to discharge, and were paid for +their services out of funds provided by the parishioners."--DR. JESSOPP, +_Before the Great Pillage_. + +[3] Radmer, _Life of Anselm_. (Rolls Series.) + +[4] "The boldness of Anselm's attitude not only broke the tradition of +ecclesiastical servitude, but infused through the nation at large a new +spirit of independence."--J.R. GREEN, _History of the English People_. + +[5] "For as long as any one in all the land was said to hold any power +except through him, even in the things of God, it seemed to him that the +royal dignity was diminished."--EADMER, _Life of Anselm_. + +[6] See Palgrave's _History of Normandy and England_. + +[7] "A martyr he clearly was, not merely to the privileges of the Church or +to the rights of the See of Canterbury, but to the general cause of law and +order as opposed to violence."--FREEMAN, _Historical Essays_. + +[8] _See_ Campbell's _Lives of the Chancellors_. + +[9] F. York Powell, _England to 1509_. + +"Ecclesiastical privileges were not so exclusively priestly privileges as +we sometimes fancy. They sheltered not only ordained ministers, but all +ecclesiastical officers of every kind; the Church courts also claimed +jurisdiction in the causes of widows and orphans. In short, the privileges +for which Thomas contended transferred a large part of the people, and that +the most helpless part, from the bloody grasp of the King's courts to the +milder jurisdiction of the bishop."--FREEMAN, _Historical Essays_. + +[10] Walter of Coventry. (Rolls Series.) + +[11] Roger of Wendover. (Rolls Series.) + +[12] "Clause by clause the rights of the commons are provided for as well +as the rights of the nobles; the interest of the freeholder is everywhere +coupled with that of the barons and knights; the stock of the merchant and +the wainage of the villein are preserved from undue severity of amercement +as well as the settled estate of the earldom or barony. The knight is +protected against the compulsory exaction of his services, and the horse +and cart of the freeman against the irregular requisition even of the +sheriff."--STUBBS, _Constitutional History_. + +[13] "Quod Anglicana Ecclesia libera sit."--_Magna Charta_, I. + +[14] "This most important provision may be regarded as a summing-up of the +history of Parliament so far as it can be said yet to exist. It probably +contains nothing which had not been for a long time in theory a part of the +Constitution: the kings had long consulted their council on taxation; that +council consisted of the elements that are here specified. But the right +had never yet been stated in so clear a form, and the statement thus made +seems to have startled even the barons.... It was for the attainment of +this right that the struggles of the reign of Henry III. were carried on; +and the realisation of the claim was deferred until the reign of his +successor. In these clauses the nation had now obtained a comparatively +clear definition of the right on which their future political power was to +be based."--STUBBS, _Constitutional History_. + +[15] "Ut quod omnes similiter tangit ab omnibus approbetur." + +[16] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_. + +[17] Stubbs, _Ibid_. + +[18] "Analogous examples may be taken from the practice of the +ecclesiastical assemblies, in which the representative theory is introduced +shortly before it finds its way into parliament."--STUBBS, _Constitutional +History_. + +[19] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_. + +[20] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_. + +[21] F. York Powell, _England to 1509_. + +[22] Sir Courtenay Ilbert, _Parliament_. + +[23] Ilbert, _Parliament_. + +[24] Bagehot, _The English Constitution_. + +[25] Bagehot, _Ibid_. + +[26] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_. + +[27] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_. + +[28] Andrew Marvell, the poet, who sat for Hull in the reign of Charles +II., was paid by the mayor and aldermen of the borough. In return Marvell +wrote letters describing passing events in London. There are stray cases of +the payment of members in the early years of the eighteenth century. Four +shillings a day, including the journey to and from London, for the knight +of the shire, and two shillings a day for the borough member were the wages +fixed by law in 1323. + +[29] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_. + +[30] Bagehot, _The English Constitution_. + +[31] _See_ Stopes' _British Freewomen_ for a full examination of this +matter. + +[32] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_. + +[33] For the last fifty years the political influence of London has been +less than that of the manufacturing districts. + +[34] "The project was clearly to set up a new order of things founded on +social equality--a theory which in the whole history of the Middle Ages +appears for the first time in connection with this movement."--DR. +GAIRDNER, _Introduction to Paston Letters_. + +[35] Four centuries later and this doctrine of all men having been born +free at the beginning was to be preached again in popular fashion by +Rousseau and find expression in American Independence and the French +Revolution. + +[36] Froissart seems to be chiefly responsible for the notion, found in the +writings of later historians, that this John Tyler was the leader of the +revolt, and for the confusion that mistakenly identifies him with Wat +Tyler, of Maidstone, the real leader. Three other Tylers are mentioned in +the records of the Peasant Revolt--Walter, of Essex, and two of the City of +London. + +[37] Hallam, _Middle Ages_. + +[38] This law of Winchester was the statute of Edward I., 1285, which +authorised local authorities to appoint constables and preserve the peace. +According to a statement made by Jack Straw, Tyler and his lieutenants +intended, amongst other things, to get rid of the King's Council, and make +each county a self-governing commune. + +[39] There are some grounds for believing that a plot had been made to slay +Wat Tyler at Smithfield. _See_ Dr. G. Kriehn _American Review_, 1902. + +[40] F. York Powell, _England to 1509_. + +[41] Durrant Cooper, _John Cade's Followers in Kent_. + +[42] "These lords found him sober in talk, wise in reasoning, arrogant in +heart, and stiff in opinions; one who by no means would dissolve his army, +except the King in person would come to him, and assent to the things he +would require."--HOLINSHED. + +[43] Stow. + +[44] "Whereof he (Cade) lost the people's favour and hearts. For it was to +be thought if he had not executed that robbery he might have gone far and +brought his purpose to good effect."--FABYAN'S _Chronicle_. + +"And for this the hearts of the citizens fell from him, and every thrifty +man was afraid to be served in likewise, for there was many a man in London +that awaited and would fain have seen a common robbery."--STOW. + +[45] "During the period, which may be roughly defined as from 1450 to 1550, +enclosure meant to a large extent the actual dispossession of the tenants +by their manorial lords. This took place either in the form of the violent +ousting of the sitting tenant, or of a refusal on the death of one tenant +to admit the son, who in earlier centuries would have been treated as his +natural successor. Proofs abound."--W.J. ASHLEY, _Economic History_. + +[46] _See_ Dr. Jessop, _The Great Pillage_. + +[47] "That a populous and wealthy city like Norwich should have been for +three weeks in the hands of 20,000 rebels, and should have escaped utter +pillage and ruin, speaks highly for the rebel leaders."--W. RYE, _Victoria +County History of Norfolk_. + +"Robert Ket was not a mere craftsman: he was a man of substance, the owner +of several manors; his conduct throughout was marked by considerable +generosity; nor can the name of patriot be denied to him who deserted the +class to which he might have belonged or aspired, and cast in his lot with +the suffering people."--CANON DIXON, _History of the Church of England_. + +[48] "There was something in the temper of these celebrated men which +secured them against the proverbial inconstancy both of the Court and of +individuals.... No Parliament attacked their influence. No mob coupled +their names with any odious grievance.... They were, one and all, +Protestants. But ... none of them chose to run the smallest personal risk +during the reign of Mary. No men observed more accurately the signs of the +times.... Their fidelity to the State was incorruptible. No intrigue, no +combination of rivals could deprive them of the confidence of their +Sovereign."--MACAULAY, _Burleigh, his Times._ + +[49] "The Tudor monarchs exercised freely their power of creating boroughs +by charter. They used their Parliaments, and had to find means of +controlling them. In the creation of 'pocket' or 'rotten' boroughs, Queen +Elizabeth was probably the worst offender. She had much influence in her +Duchy of Cornwall, and many of the Cornish boroughs which obtained such a +scandalous reputation in later times were created by her for the return of +those whom the lords of her council would consider 'safe' men."--ILBERT, +_Parliament._ + +[50] Elizabeth's popularity steadily diminished in her last years. The +death of Essex, ecclesiastical persecutions, increased taxation, and the +irritations caused by royal expenditure were all responsible for the +discontent. James I. failed from the first to secure the goodwill of the +people. + +[51] Oxford men all three. Sir John Eliot was at Exeter College, 1607; John +Hampden at Magdalen, 1609; and John Pym at Broadgate Hall (later called +Pembroke), 1599. + +[52] Clarendon, _History of the Great Rebellion_. + +[53] "The same men who, six months before, were observed to be of very +moderate tempers, and to wish that gentle remedies might be applied, talked +now in another dialect both of Kings and persons; and said that they must +now be of another temper than they were the last Parliament."--CLARENDON, +_ibid._ + +[54] Macaulay, _Hallam's Constitutional History_. + +[55] "The great rule of Cromwell was a series of failures to +reconcile the authority of the 'single person' with the authority of +Parliament."--ILBERT, _Parliament_. + +[56] "A very large number of persons regarded the struggle with +indifference.... In one case, the inhabitants of an entire county pledged +themselves to remain neutral. Many quietly changed with the times (as +people changed with the varying fortunes of York and Lancaster). That this +sentiment of neutrality was common to the greater mass of the working +classes is obvious from the simultaneous appearance of the club men in +different parts of the country with their motto: 'If you take our cattle, +we will give you battle.'"--G.P. GOOCH, _History of Democratic Ideas in the +Seventeenth Century_. + +[57] See _Memorial of English Affairs_. + +[58] "By its injudicious treatment of the most popular man in England, +Parliament was arraying against itself a force which only awaited an +opportunity to sweep it away."--G.P. GOOCH, _History of Democratic Ideas in +the Seventeenth Century_. + +[59] "So die the Leveller corporals. Strong they, after their sort, for the +liberties of England; resolute to the very death."--CARLYLE. + +[60] "Then ensued a scene, the like of which had in all probability never +been witnessed in an English court of justice, and was never again to be +witnessed till the seven bishops were freed by the verdict of a jury from +the rage of James II."--S.R. GARDINER, _History of the Commonwealth_. + +[61] Professor C.H. Firth, Lilburne in _Dict. Nat. Biography_. + +[62] Winstanley's _New Law of Righteousness_, 1649. + +[63] Palgrave. Introduction to Erskine May, _Parliamentary Practice_. + +[64] Sir John Eliot, 1629. + +[65] Edward II., in 1327, and Richard II., in 1399, had not been deposed +without the consent of Parliament. + +[66] "The monarchical regime which was revived under Charles II. broke down +under James II. It was left for the 'glorious Revolution' of 1688, and for +the Hanoverian dynasty, to develop the ingenious system of adjustments and +compromises which is now known, sometimes as cabinet government, sometimes +as parliamentary government."--ILBERT, _Parliament_. + +[67] G.P. Gooch, _Annals of Politics and Culture_. + +[68] Palmerston's influence in the House of Commons was about as bad in the +nineteenth century.--_See_ BAGEHOT, _The English Constitution_. + +[69] "Here and there we find an eminent man, whose public services were so +notorious that it was impossible to avoid rewarding them; but putting aside +those who were in a manner forced upon the Sovereign, it would be idle to +deny that the remainder and, of course, the overwhelming majority, were +marked by a narrowness and illiberality of sentiment, which, more than +anything else, brought the whole order into contempt. No great thinkers, no +great writers, no great orators, no great statesman, none of the true +nobility of the land, were to be found among those spurious nobles created +by George III. Nor were the material interests of the country better +represented. Among the most important men in England those engaged in +banking and commerce held a high place; since the end of the seventeenth +century their influence had rapidly increased.... But in the reign of +George III. claims of this sort were little heeded."--BUCKLE, _History of +Civilisation_. + +[70] "They, the friars, and especially the Franciscans, largely influenced +politics. The conception of individual freedom, upon which the life of St. +Francis was built, went far to instil the idea of civic freedom into men's +minds.... It was the ideas of the friars that found expression in the +Baron's War." The Song of the Battle of Lewes "set forth unmistakably the +conception of the official position of the King, and affirmed the right of +his subjects to remove evil counsellors from his neighbourhood, and to +remind him of his duty--ideas due to the political influence of the +Franciscans."--CREIGHTON, _Historical Lectures and Addresses_. + +[71] The late Lord Acton pointed out that St. Thomas Aquinas was really the +first Whig. + +[72] See Introduction to Rousseau's _Social Contract_, by H. J. Tozer. + +[73] "That which distinguishes the French Revolution from other political +movements is that it was directed by men who had adopted certain +speculative a priori conceptions with the fanaticism and proselytising +fervour of a religious belief, and the Bible of their Creed was the +_Contrat Social_ of Rousseau."--LECKY, _England in Eighteenth Century_, +Vol. V. + +"The original contract seized on as a watchword by Rousseau's enthusiasm +grew from an arid fiction into a great and dangerous deceit of +nations."--Sir F. POLLOCK, _History of the Science of Politics_. + +[74] Mr. H.J. Tozer. Introduction to Rousseau's _Social Contract_. + +[75] See Conway's _Life of Paine_, Vol. I. + +[76] Professor T.F. Tout, _England from 1689_. + +[77] Tout, _ibid._ + +[78] Tout, _ibid._ + +[79] R.G. Gammage, _History of the Chartist Movement_. + +[80] "The condition of the labouring classes was the least satisfactory +feature of English life in 1846. Politically they were dumb, for they had +no parliamentary votes. Socially they were depressed, though their lot had +been considerably improved by an increased demand for labour and by the +removal of taxes in Peel's great Budget of 1842. That was the year in which +the misery of the English proletariat reached its lowest depth."--HERBERT +PAUL, _History of Modern England_. + +[81] Justin McCarthy, _Short History of Our Own Times_. + +[82] McCarthy, _Ibid_. + +[83] Tout, _England since 1689_. + +[84] "For a general extension of the franchise, an extension from the +occupation franchise to the adult franchise, there does not appear to be +any demand, except in connection with the burning question of the franchise +for women."--ILBERT, _Parliament_. + +[85] "On the mere numerical basis Ireland is much over-represented, but +Ireland claims to be treated as a separate entity, and her claims cannot be +disregarded."--ILBERT, _Parliament_. + +[86] Rt. Hon. A.J. Balfour, M.P., House of Commons, 1910. + +[87] "With great tact, and without very much friction, he brought the +monarchy into touch with the state of things brought about by the Reform +Bill. He did for the Crown what Wellington did for the House of Lords. Just +as the Duke saw that the Lords must give up setting themselves against the +national will strongly expressed, so did the Prince see that the Crown +could no longer exercise those _legal_ rights for which George III. had +fought so manfully. Like the Lords, the Crown now became a checking and +regulating, rather than a moving, force. It remained as the pledge and +symbol of the unity and continuity of the national life, and could do good +work in tempering the evils of absolute party government. Such of the royal +_prerogatives_ as were not dead must be carried out by ministers. The royal +_influence_ continued to run through every branch of the State."--Professor +T.F. TOUT, _England from 1689._ + +[88] Mr. J.M. Robertson, M.P., _Charles Bradlaugh--A Record of His Life and +Work_. + +[89] F. York Powell, _Thoughts on Democracy_. + +[90] Unfortunately the present House of Commons has just decided, August, +1911, to pay its members a salary of L400 a year from the national revenue. +It is to be regretted that the cost has not been laid directly on the +electors, and that the time is not more appropriate. With the country torn +with strikes of workmen seeking a few extra shillings a week, it was hardly +the opportune moment for a House of Commons to vote itself some L250,000 a +year. The proposal would have been more palatable to the nation if the +Commons had decided that payment should begin with the _next_ Parliament. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RISE OF THE DEMOCRACY*** + + +******* This file should be named 19609.txt or 19609.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/6/0/19609 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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